Noble Heart
by Rocket Axxonu
Summary: While Artemis's mind is still crippled with Atlantis Complex, an old enemy rises again. But this time she intends to entangle the master of lies in a deception that will turn the world against him. A/H
1. Prologue

_Noble Heart_

Note:

- Disclaimer: The Artemis Fowl series and all its characters, settings, events from each book, etc. belong to Eoin Colfer. (I'm just a rabid fan spending way too much time thinking/writing about them, even though I'm not being paid.)

- Set after _The Atlantis Complex. _Since the majority of this has been planned prior to the release of the final book, content from _The Last Guardian_ will be disregarded. (New details of settings/technology/etc. from TLG may possibly be used, but whenever conflicts arise I'll go with what I originally intended, based purely on the canon from the first seven books.)

- Rated for violence.

* * *

Prologue

The sun had only just begun to set that day, casting a red glow over Chicago and its maze of steel and glass. Of the many imposing corporate buildings that marred the city skyline, one stood particularly striking among them. With a structure vaguely reminiscent of a torpedo, a sharp, deadly tip at it apex, it sliced up through the thin layer of inversion that hung low over the city.

A long, gleaming white limousine pulled up in front of the building, and the moment the purr of the engine cut short, a thin man barely five feet tall dressed in a custom-made white linen suit stepped out of the vehicle, striding forward without so much as a glance at the servant who had emerged first to open the door for him.

"Welcome back, Master Spiro," said a second employee standing by the entrance, a woman this time, her back bent slightly in a humble bow.

"Get me a cup of coffee," said Jon Spiro without preamble, barely sparing his secretary a glance. "I want it in my room in the next five minutes, and it'd better be hot enough to sue over."

"Right away, Master Spiro," said the secretary, and, after holding open the door for the short man and allowing him to enter ahead of her, soon hurried off toward the kitchen.

* * *

In the upscale office that had laid vacant for so long, Jon Spiro soon settled himself into the rolling chair that sat in front of his work desk. He reached forward to depress the power button on the top-of-the-line Apple computer, but then he wavered. He withdrew his hand, and instead simply leaned back and closed his eyes.

Four years. It had taken him four years, but all those expensive lawyers, bribes to select law enforcers and judges, and a few subtle threats here and there had all finally paid off. He'd hit the jackpot with that last judge – spineless to the last degree, and so cooperative that, in the end, Spiro had not even had to pay for the damage to the Phonetics' room that he and his two moronic goons Pex and Chips had shot up.

Needless to say, private detectives and intelligence agencies around the world were spitting fire now that the infamous Jon Spiro was getting off with little more than a slap on the wrist yet again. Whoever had coined the phrase "No one's above the law" obviously didn't know how the real world worked.

Usually, after an event like this, Spiro would feel triumphant, elated. But as he leaned forward to stare into the black depths of his coffee, the bitter taste that had lingered in his mouth these past years burned like acid, a pungent slime that coated his tongue and hung in his esophagus like the tiny parasitic feelers of a virus.

He took a sip of the coffee to try to distract himself. He tasted decaf.

"_I hunted you."_

Suddenly, Spiro let loose a furious roar, and he threw his cup across the thick pile carpet with all his might, leaving a long dark stain in the white fibers. The cup hit the soft carpeting and remained intact, but it bounced, and continued to hop and roll until it found its way to the linoleum on the other side of the room, where an expensive hand-carved wooden dining table sat. A single lamp Spiro had flicked on earlier sat on the kitchen counter nearby, its light glittering strangely in the darkness.

_How did he do it?_ Spiro inwardly seethed, slamming a fist against the desk, making his laptop jump a centimeter. _It was impossible!_

"You seem frustrated," said a voice.

Spiro's heart jerked unsteadily for a moment and, without thinking, he spun around, his hand plunging for the gun he always kept in the pocket of his suit-jacket.

"Now, none of that," said the voice. "Hands in the air, please."

Seeing the silver glimmer of the weapon leveled at his chest, Spiro pulled his fist away from his jacket and put his hands up in submission.

"Good," said the mysterious visitor. "Now we may talk."

Spiro stared at the figure sitting leisurely on the edge of his dining room table, his eyes wide with disbelief.

_How many more children are going to humiliate me?_ he thought furiously. Who made these things happen? The gods of fate?

The thought of 'gods' summoned an image that had been endlessly repeating itself in Spiro's head since the day of his arrest. It was that very thought that had sustained him through years spent in and out of courtrooms, sitting in holding cells as he waited for his turn, that had doubled his determination to slither his way out of his predicament, and at that moment a flash of blind fury surged through his veins. However, he didn't have time for that now, so Spiro quickly suppressed it and focused all his attention to taking in all the information available to him.

The trespasser was, at least in appearance, no more than a little girl. Spiro estimated her to be about eleven or twelve given her height, which had to be about four to four-and-a-half feet, though it was difficult to tell exactly when she was sitting down. She had the face of a model, with flawless porcelain skin, a small nose, and round lips like those of a cherub. The face was framed by long, silken black hair, and the only sign of ill-health was the ghost hint of sleepless dark patches that hung just beneath her carefully applied mascara. However, she showed no sign of weariness or physical weakness; her expression was almost lazy, indolent, as though she felt perfectly at ease.

Still pointing the weapon steadily at the American businessman, the girl reached down with one small hand and picked up something out of a box on the table next to her. She took a delicate bite out of it and Spiro saw that it appeared to be a chocolate truffle.

"What do you want?" demanded Spiro, unable to suppress his indignation at this level of complacency. "Who are you?" First and foremost, he needed to figure a way out of this scenario. It seemed that, as usual, his hired security was utterly useless and he'd have to do everything himself. Once he got out, his first priority would be to ensure that at least one of his employees' families woke up to the sight of a hearse parked out in their driveway.

"We have a mutual acquaintance," the girl answered, but she did not elaborate, opting instead to delicately lick her fingers and examine her carefully manicured nails, which were painted a deep red.

Spiro felt a sudden jolt shoot through him at the words, and he forgot for the present all about her intentionally galling attitude. Something about the vocabulary and almost sophisticated cadence of the child made him pause. This girl spoke like an adult, and what was more, her tone possessed a poise and confidence unheard of in someone that young. Not unlike...

Spiro shook it off and instead dropped his eyes to examine the weapon in the girl's hand. Now that he had a good look at it, the thing appeared a little small for an ordinary handgun.

"Humph," said Spiro. "I don't even know why I'm bothering to stand here and listen to this. You think you're going to push me around with your little toy, girl?" And to prove his resolve, Spiro took a single step forward, hand returning to his suit-jacket. He didn't care how old she was. There was no such thing as age in the world of hard-core business transactions and mafia kingpins, where all lived by the rule of survival of the fittest.

However, Spiro felt a burst of heat blow past his ear, and he froze where he was. The smell of acrid smoke filled his nostrils and he looked over his shoulder only to see a smoldering hole precisely two inches in diameter carved into the left cabinet atop his computer desk.

Spiro turned slowly back to face the little girl.

"First of all," she said, "_humph_ is not a word. Secondly, I'm surprised you are not interested in knowing how... _he_ defeated you."

Spiro stared at her, every muscle in his body suddenly very still. "How do you..." But he stopped himself. The questions burned inside him, but he must not give in just yet. He needed to find a way to get the upper hand first, and then he could have all the answers he wanted. So, for the moment, he settled with simply throwing out in the most derisive tone he could muster, "Let me guess. You're his little sister or something, right?"

The girl simply stared at him for a moment. Then, suddenly, her placid face contorted with a hatred so fierce that all her beauty appeared washed away in an instant. Her brown eyes seemed to glow red in the darkness, as though the girl was possessed by a demon, and she spat with a poisonous mixture of disgust and fury, "You _dare_... You would dare to accuse me of being in any way related by blood to the likes of..." Her mouth twisted as though she had tasted something inexpressibly vile. "_Artemis Fowl_?"

Then, as quickly as her ferocity had come, the girl's face softened and she was perfectly normal once more. She plucked another truffle from the box and said, almost breezily, "No, I am not related to that infuriating Mud Child. He is merely someone I greatly detest and to whom I would like to bring untold suffering before sending him to an untimely demise. So I thought you and I might reach some sort of understanding."

She took another dainty bite of the chocolate and then continued reasonably, "We both want to see the ruin of Artemis Fowl the Second, correct? You require the means both to locate and ultimately defeat him, and I need an effective cover for my operations, as well as resources – resources that you possess, Jon Spiro. Though I understand the boy stripped you of much of what you once had, you also retrieved much even while you were indisposed under the watch of your human law enforcement. Even this building you contrived to hold onto would be a great asset to me. We could be of great assistance to one another."

While the girl was speaking, Spiro's eyes had drifted down to the truffle. The thing gave him indigestion just looking at it; his sensitive stomach had never much been able to handle sweet things, even back when he'd still been living on a diet that consisted of something more than pills and water. A feeling of foreboding prickled at the base of his skull. There was something about the arrogance, the _presumption_ of this girl to think she could ever be of use to him that he could not ignore.

Yet, from her reaction to his mention of the Fowl heir, Spiro had to admit he had the barest thought that, with time, he might just be able to someday take a liking to this girl.

"You said something about telling me how he did it?" Spiro inquired.

The girl smiled, the expression far from innocent or pleasant to behold.

"Let me tell you a story," she murmured. "A story of a little boy who was clever, ambitious, and surrounded by ever so many loyal friends. A naughty little boy who, in the end, was destined to be deprived of everything he held dear, to drown in the sea of misery and destruction born of his own crimes..."

* * *

A/N: Well then, here we are! I guess this is my second longterm-AF fanfiction attempt, though technically my first, since I started this before the other one. (Early October 2010, I think... but you probably don't care about that. (; )

Anyway! Here's some good news: as those of you who'd been reading the other story (The Other Paradox) probably guessed, it was all self-beta-ed and often suffered on the wording and typo-front as a result. So this time a huge, huge thanks to levina, who beta-ed this for me and helped smooth out the kinks and congested areas. :3 (And is staying on with me for more future chapters too! :D)

Well, even as talkative as many of you know I am, I'll leave it at that for now. ;) Please review and tell me what you think so far! Constructive criticism, pointing out typos, saying lines you liked, asking questions about details concerning canon, whatever (or just saying that you read it (; ) is great, so don't be shy. It's encouraging just to know you're here, yeah? (:

Thanks for reading! I'm hoping to have the first chapter up before too long. (: (And yes, the title is supposed to be cheesy, even though the story isn't. XD Where the title comes from will be made clear by the end of chapter 2.)

Posted 7/19/12


	2. Most Unprofessional

Chapter 1: Most Unprofessional

Holly Short was having a dream.

She sometimes thought about how she would prefer, just once, to dream about something pleasant. Like flying high above the treetops of a beautiful landscape aboveground, an area the Mud Men hadn't trampled over yet. Or perhaps about her mother singing her to sleep as she always used to back when Holly was still breaking in her first set of trainers. Or even about listening to Foaly go on about some new gadget he had developed.

Of course, she had no such luck. Instead of enjoying breathtaking vistas or mothers or the latest Neutrino model, Holly was standing in front of a very familiar-looking desk in a room permeated with clouds of noxious fungus cigar smoke, getting reamed by a stout fairy whose complexion roughly resembled that of an eggplant.

"As if going back in time wasn't enough – and let me tell you, for an offense like that, losing your job is the least of your worries, considering that time travel is a felony that can land you in a high security cell in the Atlantis penitentiary for the next 300 years—"

Even though she knew it was dangerous to do so, when Commander Root took a breath mid-rail, Holly put in, "Actually, most of Atlantis has been evacuated for rebuilding, sir."

The commander blinked, then roared, "Do I look like I _care_, Captain? We, the LEP, are here to keep fairies from breaking the law, and here we have you making scrap of one of the biggest laws in the Book. Seriously, do you have any _idea_ what the possible repercussions of time travel are, Short? Do you?"

"I think so, sir," replied Holly, deciding not to go into the whole it's-impossible-to-change-the-past theory.

Root glared at her with the sort of furious expression that generally caused his LEP officers to wilt like flowers on the spot, or at least be sent to the LEP's resident psychiatrist hired to handle trauma victims. Holly, however, met his gaze steadily and stared straight back.

The commander suddenly coughed, his face for once reddening with something other than anger. "But somehow it gets even worse," he muttered, rubbing his forehead. His voice quickly shot back up to its usual level as, in a tone of thinly veiled disgust, he went on, "I'm disappointed, Short, I really am. Such unprofessional behavior. I knew from the start promoting a girlie to the rank of captain was a bad idea, but I can say even I never guessed the depths the female mind could sink to."

"I—I don't know what you mean, sir," stammered Holly, horror temporarily overshadowing her irritation at the 'girl captain' dig. Somehow she knew precisely what he was driving at.

"Don't interrupt me!" shouted Root. "And I think you know perfectly well what I mean. How you always manage to do these things to me, Short, I have no idea. Now, I just want a plain, simple answer. Did you, or did you not, have a — erm, _moment—_ " He had to break off, as at the word his voice took on the strangled note of a dog choking on its own spit. The commander quickly collected himself however and, to make up for the lapse, continued with renewed thunderous authority, "Yes, a _moment_, Captain Short. A moment involving a certain mud-worm, who also happens to have formerly been public enemy number one, and knows enough of our secrets that he's _still_ a hazard to the People to this day."

"Moment? That...That's awfully vague, Commander," said Holly, mortification in every syllable. "Where in Frond's name would you get such a ridiculous... What are you talking about? Sir."

"Oh, you know," said Root, voice dangerously low. He leaned forward on his elbows, eyes narrowed. "I think you know _exactly_. I'm talking about inappropriate conduct while on duty. Inadvisable, disturbing acts of blatant contempt for fairy law and culture." The commander stopped himself, apparently noticing that he was veering off track. As if Holly had been blabbering, he abruptly ordered, "But never mind, just shut up and answer the question. I don't want to hear any excuses. No qualifications, no whining, nothing—a simple yes or no will do. And, before you start, I'm gonna play nice and tell you my informant has promised to send pictures as evidence, so don't even think of lying to me."

Holly resisted the urge to wince painfully at that. _Picture evidence? How in the world— _

But Holly was distracted from her thoughts as she suddenly noticed a device like a metal box attached to the commander's chest. Before she had even registered it was there, bright red numbers had begun to count rapidly downward.

For a second, Holly was frozen, too stunned to act. Then her hand half flinched in the direction of the bomb, her paralyzed legs taking her a single staggering step forward just as a shout formed in her mouth. "Comman— "

"Too late," interrupted a sing-song voice from behind her, and indeed, it _was _too late. A bright flower of flame exploded outward, completely consuming Holly's commanding officer in an instant. For a moment the blaze rose high, engulfing the walls of the office and leaving Holly standing at the center of an inferno. Then the flames retreated and died away, leaving in their wake all the cabinets charred black as coal and plunging the room into shadow.

Holly turned slowly to gaze through the darkness into the face of Opal Koboi, with her long, pretty black hair and red bow lips. The girl's normally attractive features were twisted in delight, and her cold cruel eyes seemed to glow with savage glee. Her formerly small frame loomed high in the small fairy office, as a pixie, Opal had once ranked among the shortest of fairies, but now, thanks to the human pituitary gland implanted in her skull, she was as tall as any Mud Girl on the verge of entering adolescence: a veritable giant next to Holly.

"Dead," said Opal, with a bit of a giggle. "Oh, I'm sorry. Does that upset you, Captain Holly Short?"

Holly's hand flew to the gun at her hip, but then Opal's features suddenly shifted like water. Where she had been a moment before now stood a boy, about ten to twelve years of age or thereabouts. He was dressed in an expensive, neatly-pressed suit, his black hair combed back from a wide forehead, and his skin as pale as that of a corpse. Cold, piercing blue eyes met Holly's.

"Now, I would like to discuss my payment," said Artemis Fowl.

"Payment?" Holly repeated, momentarily disoriented.

"Yes," said the young boy, nodding. He held up what appeared to be a thin black leather by its handle for her to view. "Within this briefcase," he began, "I hold the means to destroy both your reputation and career. However, I would be more than happy to not only destroy these materials, but also send a little tip to reassure the good commander that the earlier information he received was a hoax, and then provide satisfactory evidence of such. Now, for this kind of service I would normally ask for one metric ton of pure gold ingots, but in your case I am willing to settle with only half of that."

"You were the one who told—but that's blackmail!" objected Holly, completely forgetting her earlier ordeal. "I thought we were friends."

"'Blackmail' is such an unpleasant term," said the boy mildly. "I prefer to think of it as you and I working out a deal for mutual benefit. And we are indeed friends—I lowered my demands for you, didn't I? But you cannot expect me to pass up every opportunity for profit that comes my way, out of some misplaced sense of _honor_." He said the last word with a slight curl to his lip, as though he found the notion so worthy of scorn as to be humorous. "Simply be grateful that I am not selling you to Damon Kronski again. Now, your career for the next five hundred years is on the line here, Captain. That is worth anything I ask for, wouldn't you agree?"

"Mutual bene... You really don't know the meaning of the word 'friendship," said Holly incredulously. "Even with that big vocabulary. If you honestly think I'll give in to something like this, you're deluded."

The child criminal sighed dramatically. "Then you leave me with no option." He reached for the clamps on the case. "Oh, Commander Root," he began, his tone suspiciously cheerful, "I have something for you. I believe you may find some of these jungle habitat photos rather intriguing..."

"What?" said Commander Root, alive and well once more, chewing vigorously on his fungus cigar. Holly wondered if her boss didn't have better things to do than accuse her of being a bit unprofessional on a mission that had already been over and done with for months.

Holly, resisting the urge to play the What-do-you-care-about-what-officers-do-in-their-private-lives-anyway card, turned and tried to block Artemis's path. But the boy, uncharacteristically nimble, weaved around her.

"Last chance," he called to Holly as he set the case on the desk with an ominous _clunk_.

In desperation, Holly spun and fixed Root with a pleading expression. "It's a lie, Commander," she blurted, before Artemis had even finished flipping the latch. "It's fake. I mean, okay, I was an adolescent for a while and you know how teenagers are, raging emotions and hormones and all—but he's lying, really, the whole situation was completely out of my control. Commander, believe me, it's not what you think..."

* * *

"Holly. Hooolly...Hey, you awake?"

Thanks to her training with the LEP, the moment Holly opened her eyes her body was instantly on full alert and poised for action. Her brain, however, was still half asleep, and it took a little while for it to follow suit, so at first she didn't recognize the two faces hovering over her like they might have a fascinating lab experiment.

Holly slowly sat up straight, registering the feel of the cheap brown-gray couches of the LEP break lounge. She stretched and dragged a hand across her face, trying to rouse herself.

"Foaly, Trouble," she said after a moment with a half glance back up.

"Finally!" called Foaly with mock enthusiasm, then smirked a little behind his hand. "Now then, that must have been some dream. So tell us...what's this that you wanted the commander to know _didn't_ happen? Some deep, dark secret buried in your past from when you were a simple, innocent adolescent?" Trouble, too, was giving her a sideways look, one eyebrow raised in curiosity.

Holly fought the urge to groan and lay back down. She hadn't realized that she was the type to prattle on when she was asleep; that was more Foaly's thing, at least according to Caballine. Talking in her sleep could be considered a liability, considering she was an LEP officer, but Holly was glad that this time that everything she had said had apparently been completely misinterpreted.

_Commander_.

A momentary wave of melancholy stole through Holly as she remembered that Commander Root was gone. Even after all this time, the pain of loss and regret could still be as sharp in her gut as a fresh wound.

But then Holly composed herself, shaking her head to try to rid her mind of the last remnants of the emotions left over from the moronic dream.

"What time is it?" she asked, pointedly ignoring Foaly's probing.

Without bothering to actually check and his golden eyes still fastened on his chief object of gossip, the centaur answered, "Late. Almost everyone's gone back to their poor, lonely apartments now." He swept a furry hand around the empty break room to demonstrate. "You were out like the dead. The commander and I were starting to think we'd have to get a cup of cold coffee... I made those suits liquid-resistant for more than one reason, you know." He gave Holly a wink.

Trouble shot Foaly a withering look. "_You _were thinking of getting a cup of cold coffee. Don't lump me in with you, centaur."

Holly didn't care for this line of thought as she imagined what it would be like to walk home from work with sweetener in her hair and bits of old coffee grounds sticking in the folds of her jumpsuit. She would have come in with her own acid comment then, but Foaly, ignoring Trouble, was already talking again, this time in a tone a touch more serious.

"But it's no wonder really," he said, folding his arms and frowning at Holly as though she was one of his misbehaving techies. "After requesting all those difficult aboveground missions, one right after another, of course you're going to wind up passing out for hours on end in strange places. That's half a dozen Recon missions in the past couple of months alone; that's unheard of, that is. I'm thinking you might be due for another appointment at Cominetto Spa before too long..."

"He's right," Trouble said. Then, straightening, he took on a more authoritative tone and repeated, "That is, he's absolutely right. You _are_ overdoing it, Captain. That's why I'm here to tell you that, no matter how much work they're pouring onto us from that whole Atlantis debacle six months back, I'm going to be limiting the amount of work you're permitted to take on starting now."

Holly started at this and, quickly deciding that Foaly's threat of sending her to the spa was not the most pressing issue at the moment, began earnestly, "But Trubs— "

"That's _Commander_," said Trouble, perhaps hoping that invoking the position and the respect it demanded would be enough to quell all protest; although, knowing the insubordinate female captain as well as he did, perhaps he should have known better if so.

"_Commander_," said Holly, not being particularly respectful, "I'm perfectly fit for Recon work." She pushed herself up from the old couch, then swayed slightly, lightheaded. Staunchly ignoring the twin looks of _'Right, of course you are,' _Holly added, "Anyway, I don't have time to argue about it now. I was planning to stop by the clinic today and I want to get there before visiting hours are over."

Though Trouble's face was stern and stoic as it usually was, inwardly he had been eying his officer with something almost akin to concern for some time now. However, the feeling was quickly replaced with annoyance. Going to 'the clinic,' of course, meant going to see Artemis Fowl, who was staying underground in order to receive treatment for a fairy-related mental illness. Trouble had to admit that he did not trust Fowl the way Holly, Foaly, and the little demon warlock Nº1 all seemed to. Even if the Mud Boy had helped the fairies out of some tight situations in the past, and now appeared no more than a well-intentioned ally of the People who had long-since repented of past wrongdoing, a human never really ceased to be a threat. As far as Trouble was concerned, the human was like a rattlesnake hibernating for the winter, and it was only so long before the snow melted and he got back to business.

Trouble, his arms folded tightly over his broad chest, tapped his fingers against his arm in agitation.

In all honesty, the only reason Trouble had been continuing up to this point to grant Holly's entreaties for a near ridiculous amount of extra assignments, and allowing her to indulge in her recent penchant for volunteering to send herself if one of the other officers was on leave or unexpectedly out of the office due to some emergency, was that he had rather hoped it would help her to forget about the human and his concerns. She hadn't entirely been herself since the incident with Turnball Root, which wasn't a surprise considering all she had been through, and the last thing she needed was one more stress over an undeserving mud-cretin like Fowl.

But so far Trouble's hope had been a vain one. Despite everything she took on, Holly was still managing to visit Fowl in his hospital room at least once or even twice a week, which Trouble considered rather excessive, and there was no sign she was planning to let up. However, arguing with Holly Short once she made up her mind on something was a little like trying to get a dwarf to take a bath – totally futile, and possibly dangerous if the dwarf started to get annoyed. It was out of his jurisdiction to order her to stay away from the human, and Trouble wouldn't have even if he did have that power. Holly was a loyal friend: that was one of the things Trouble had always liked and respected most about her. If she wanted to spend her time in quality bonding with a "reformed" felon who was probably intending to eventually rob her and everyone else in a five-mile radius blind, he supposed that was her concern. At least Trouble could have some consolation in the fact that, from what he had heard, the human wouldn't be staying underground much longer. After all of Fowl's months of treatment at the Argon clinic, Haven would be rid of its unwelcome intruder at last when the human returned to the surface to finish his recovery on Dr. Argon's orders.

"All right, Captain," said Trouble, showing his opinion of her plans with a distinct frown. "We'll continue this conversation a little later. But there's still time, so I'd appreciate it if you could stay a minute. I want to talk to you."

Holly's eyebrows moved up a fraction. She glanced at Foaly. "'Still time'?" she repeated. "Aren't you both off now? I thought the dayshift was over."

Foaly laughed. "Off? You mean as in 'off work'? At the LEP? Oh, don't we all keep dreaming of the day."

"Oh really," said Holly, eying him suspiciously. "Then I wonder what you were both doing in here, cheerfully going on about throwing coffee on me when I'm busy trying to catch a few minutes' well-earned rest."

Foaly shrugged and raised his cup as though in a toast. "Just getting something to keep us going through the long hours," he said. "With all the work you've been doing lately, you should know what I mean. As much as I hate to admit it, it's a generally acknowledged fact that the entire LEP would probably fall apart without its central pillar of sim-caffeinated beverages."

Holly gave a grudging chuckle, but her eyes remained on Foaly's cup, and when he lowered it again she couldn't help but notice it was already empty, the brown dredges at the bottom already long-solidified in place.

"Right," she said. "And you only had a few minutes to pop in for a quick coffee break because you have _so much_ work to do."

For some reason, Foaly shot a glance at Trouble, but Trouble didn't react. "Well," he said, turning his eyes back to Holly and smirking, "someone had to be here to make you feel better when you woke up from your nightmares."

Foaly had no way of knowing that this remark stung a little, given that the dream had been about Julius, but Holly wasn't about to show it. "The real nightmare started when I woke up and saw your face looming over me."

Meanwhile, Trouble had glanced at the digital clock on the far wall above the coffee machine and gave a start. "I didn't realize we'd been here so long," he said, cutting in on the usual verbal repartee. "You should have said something, centaur."

"You had the time right there," Foaly answered without much concern. He was still looking at Holly, and he opened his mouth as though to continue the conversation.

However, Holly's gaze was on the clock too now. "I'd better go," she said abruptly. "There's still an hour or two. I can still make it." She glanced back at Trouble. "Sorry, what was it you were going to say?"

Trouble pried his gaze away from the clock, and he blinked, looking vaguely startled. He began uncertainly, "Oh yes. That's right. I was..." However, his wandering eyes fell on Foaly, and the commander's expression flickered back into an irritated scowl.

"Don't you have somewhere to be, Mr. Technical Advisor?" he asked pointedly. "Maybe the LEP isn't giving you enough work if you have time to slack off."

"That makes two slackers if you want to play it that way, Commander," the centaur noted. He added morosely, "And I'm here working overtime for you plenty, so you could afford to show a bit more appreciation once in awhile."

When Foaly's feigned injury failed to inspire the appropriate responses of sympathy, he sighed and said, "Ah well, I understand, Trubs." He clapped Trouble on the shoulder and said with a wink at Holly, "I'll just leave you two alone now."

Perhaps to cover his embarrassment, Trouble coughed and blustered, "Right, then get a move on, why don't you? You're as slow as a goblin trying to add one plus one."

"Not that slow," Foaly pouted, before he caught sight of Holly glaring daggers at him. It looked like she hadn't forgiven him for the website thing yet. He still didn't know how she'd found out about it, what with the hotshot Recon captain being totally unconnected to anything in the real world with all her recent work, but he had a sneaking suspicion that a certain psychiatric patient with too much time on his hands might have had something to do with it. The teenage human was certainly developing a twisted sense of humor.

"Uh... right," said Foaly nervously. "See you later then." He couldn't resist one last act of mischievousness, though, and so he added, "Oh, I almost forgot, I've been meaning to give you this, Holly." Foaly picked a thick book up off one of the nearby coffee tables in front of the couch, pulling it off a stack of dogeared magazines filled with scantily-clad female elves and sprites advertising a variety of new vehicles. He handed it to Holly. Then, with a wink, he was gone.

Holly only had to take one look at the cover before she got a sinking feeling.

Trouble waited until the centaur had disappeared through the sliding automatic door and it had finished closing before he turned to Holly.

"Yes, Commander?" Holly prompted, turning her attention away from the unsettling book. "You know, we can always talk later if you need to get going now. It's fine."

_'Commander' she says_, thought Trouble, his frown deepening again. When they were in the field or on duty, it was about all he could do to get Holly and everyone else to respect the chain of command. Now, when they were off-duty and no one else was around, she was referring to him as _C__ommander_. Maybe he shouldn't have insisted on being called by his title earlier, or maybe Holly was taking a page out of Foaly's book and just doing it to annoy him.

"Trouble," he said, determined to be patient, though he was about as well known for his patience as former Recon commander Julius Root. "It's after hours for you, Holly, so you can call me Trouble. Forget what I said earlier. And a few minutes more won't hurt anything."

"Right, Trouble," said Holly.

Trouble stared into her face for a moment, into her eyes, trying to figure out what she was thinking, but it was no good as her expression was as near to neutral as it ever was. She looked like that a lot lately. So instead he found himself focusing on the mismatched colors of those eyes. One was a warm hazel, the eye of an elf; the other was an icy blue, a human eye, the keepsake from her three-year-long disappearance into Limbo when her own left eye had accidentally been switched with Fowl's upon their return.

It was strange, knowing someone for so many years, only to have that person abruptly disappear, then miraculously reappear after so long. It made one unable to keep from seeing that friend in a new light. And for some reason, Trouble Kelp found that the blue eye irritated him.

"Anyway," said Trouble. "Like I said, you're working yourself too hard, Holly. I know there's a lot going on with the cleanup around Atlantis and the spike in criminal activity with all the morons wanting to follow in that slimy convict Turnball Root's footsteps. But even so, sometimes it's when things are the most tense that you need to remember to just slow down and take care of yourself. So, I've arranged it so you can go ahead and take tomorrow off. Rest up, recharge your batteries. You know, _relax_. Frond knows you need it." He eyed the dark circles under Holly's eyes.

"Honestly," said Holly, exasperated, though she couldn't seem to stop her mouth twitching a little in a smile. "You said we could discuss this later. Besides, I'm fine. It's getting too much rest that tires me out."

Trouble chuckled slightly. "Please, Holly. Give me some credit. You can't possibly keep hurtling to the surface for thirty-six hour missions and longer, beginning at any and all hours, doing all kinds of other strenuous work to boot in between, and tell me you're not totally drained. And this is coming from me. Holly, Root saw you as one of the LEP's finest officers, but you're still just a plain mortal like the rest of us. You're of most use to the People well-rested and at your best."

Holly looked defiant for a moment, but, the effect being somewhat ruined by the bags under her eyes, she finally just let out a sigh. "Okay, okay," she said. "Maybe I'll try cutting back. A little."

"Tomorrow off," said Trouble again firmly. "A full day."

"A full day," Holly repeated, frowning. "And just what am I going to do with a full day?"

"Sleep?" Trouble suggested. "Maybe watch some television, get caught up on all your soaps."

Holly snorted. Like she didn't avoid soap operas of all kinds like the plague. Emotionally charged, over-the-top dramas weren't exactly her thing. Her face sobered though, and she tried again. "You're all working overtime already, you can't afford to give me time off," she argued. "We're short-staffed as it is. Everyone has worked as hard as I am now or harder before, and they just have to deal with it."

"This is no special treatment," he said. "I'm just smart enough to know I'll get more work out of my officers if I make them stop and be still for a minute than if I let them burn themselves out over nothing. You've had too many days recently you should have taken off but didn't, so consider this compensation for that."

Holly didn't have a good response to this, so she didn't answer.

Trouble took advantage of her silence to continue, coughing into his fist. "And," he said, "if you've been getting your rest like you're supposed to, perhaps in the evening you can go out to eat somewhere, when the rest of the LEP officers are finally getting off. And see a movie, maybe, if you want. What do you think?"

"I see," said Holly, the corner of her lip twitching, fighting a smile. "I have to admit, that was subtle, Trubs, especially for you." In fact, Holly imagined that if Artemis had been there, he probably would have rolled his eyes and, in his best patronizing tone, commented, _So subtle in fact, I'm surprised you picked up on it, Captain. Congratulations._

"Thanks," said Trouble. "Is that a yes?"

He grinned at her and Holly found herself grinning back. "I guess so," she said, her tone a mix of exasperation and amusement. "But let's skip the movie, I doubt there's anything worth seeing."

"What about that dramatized version of the goblin uprising?" suggested Trouble. "I hear they're replaying it. A bit bland after living through the real thing, I know, but..."

Holly groaned. "Definitely not the one about the goblin rebellion. Do you realize they had Skylar Peat playing me? She's four inches taller than I am. I mean _four inches_. And she looks about as fit to be a Recon officer as..." She trailed off, not wanting to say the first name that came to mind as it might send Trouble into a rant.

"As my brother Grub?" Trouble supplied, grinning.

"Yes," said Holly, relieved. "Or Corporal Frond."

Trouble laughed, then shrugged. "Okay, no movie. I don't really like action films much anyway." A bit ironic, but Holly supposed it probably had something to do with the fact that he preferred to live the action. "Dinner at eight?"

"Fine," said Holly. "See you there then, Trubs."

Trouble nodded, then glanced at a readout on his wrist computer. "I better get back to things. Some demons and a goblin escaped to the surface a few weeks ago and we've been having a terrible time trying to track them down. Either they _know_ just how to evade us, or they've got the devil's luck, as the humans say. Even the goblin's not leaving behind much of a trail to speak of, though there's already been a few instances of vandalizing, property damage of Mud Men facilities and so on. Nothing too serious, but if they get captured by the Mud Men or get caught on some mud-tourist's digital camera..." He trailed off ominously.

Trouble sighed and looked tired for a moment, staring off into space. But then, noticing Holly's expression, he went on quickly, "Never mind, though. It'll get taken care of. This is a goblin we're talking about: we're more worried about him slipping up and exposing himself to a human before we can get to him than that he'll keep away from us for long."

"I hadn't heard about that," said Holly, frowning. "Trouble, why don't I – "

"Oh no you don't," said Trouble, arms folded. "_You_ are taking tomorrow off." He punctuated the 'you' by jabbing a finger in her face. "We already have a Recon officer and full-time retrieval squad on top of it, and even if you went, you wouldn't be much good to anyone if you died of exhaustion up there. I'm thinking of sending myself if things don't wrap up soon anyway."

Holly sighed again, then smiled slightly. "Who's working too hard now?"

Trouble returned the grin. "Still you. Well, see you later." He put up a hand in a slight wave. "Have fun at the mental hospital." Then he was gone, disappearing through the automatic sliding door.

Holly's smile faded slowly. A whole day off... a whole day without endless protocols and procedures to think about following, and dangerous situations or constant activity to take her mind off those things she would rather not think about.

Then: It wasn't really that funny, the mental hospital thing.

* * *

As Foaly clopped slowly back to the Operations Booth, he found himself in a somewhat more contemplative mood than usual.

Of course, Foaly certainly had enough on his plate to think about at the moment without piling on any more sources of stress. First there was the rebuilding of Atlantis in order to meet new safety regulations, which, after the Turnball Root incident, had finally been approved by the voters and politicians alike, despite the cost involved. Then of course there was the tightening of security everywhere in response to the recent spike in criminal activity by Turnball-Root wannabes. Not to mention that the centaur was also responsible for overseeing the implementation of Artemis's new anti-global-warming inventions; what with all the techies insisting on opening a com link every time they couldn't quite get a installer cable to fit, Foaly had not been able to get a moment's peace ever since the project started.

With all that, Foaly knew he didn't need anything else to be expending brain power on, but somehow he couldn't help it. These days he just couldn't help thinking about his fiery elfin friend Holly Short.

Almost half a year had passed since the probe attack and the death of the infamous outlaw Turnball Root. After being hunted by jelly monsters with laser beams, almost crushed by an enormous probe, nearly asphyxiated in a tiny underwater escape pod, enthralled by one of Turnball's runes so as to lose her free will and induced to betray her friends, not to mention forced to endure the antics of a mentally unstable Mud Boy for most of the way, one would think the female Recon captain would feel the need to take at least a little time off. What with the vital warning she had managed to send to Atlantis, she had definitely earned it. But no, apparently _time off_ was not on Holly Short's agenda.

Foaly was rubbing his ear in annoyance as he made it back to his work station. After entering all the security codes, standing for the scans of his DNA, and speaking up so the computer could do a voice recognition test, the door slid aside to admit him and he clopped on in. He went directly to the main computer and started rapidly bringing up all the files he was using, which he had been sure to lock before he'd left, images from various surveillance operations he was advising for, visual waves of suspicious audio-files he was dissecting, detailed schematics of Artemis's deceptively simplistic Ice Cube machines with a few of his own little improvements, among a horde of other things. However, he found he was still distracted.

_It was more than just the trauma of having all those near-death experiences all crammed into one day she had to deal with,_ he thought to himself as he absently brought up an image of a schematic on a new pet project he had been working on for the last couple months. _She was right there when we lost Viny__á__ya. That must have rattled her more than she let on, especially once we got back and out of that storm of insanity. It sure has me, and I didn't even see it happen._

The normal response after going through something like that would have been to want to slow things down, stop and take a breather. Back after Commander Root had been murdered, Holly had been able to get back on her feet, but it had taken time. She may not have been as close to Vinyáya as she had been to Julius, but Vinyáya had still been Holly's flight instructor back in the academy, and Foaly knew for a fact that the middle-aged elf had been one of the few officers in the LEP's high command whom Holly actually respected.

Instead, from day one back in the office, Holly always seemed to be hanging around the operations booth or shooting him emails, asking if he had something for her to do. At first, Foaly had barely noticed; Holly had always been a disciplined and hard-working officer who carried out her responsibilities without fail. It wasn't until Foaly noticed that it had become a running joke among the officers that the only female Recon officer in the LEP was turning almost as gung-ho as their commander that he thought something seemed a little odd.

Foaly hit a key on the keyboard to rotate the the green-wired schematic of the elongated shaft onscreen that roughly resembled a needle, the newest generation of supersonic attack shuttle, then forced himself to minimize it and turn his eyes back the audio files, but his mind was still miles away.

Of course, everyone at the LEP who knew Holly had their own theories. Some said the work was just her way of dealing with shock from seeing a commanding officer die right in front of her. Others with a little more audacity said that she probably blamed herself for what had happened to the commander, seeing as how it had happened when they were meeting with a human everyone knew Captain Short to be on good terms with, and the extra work was a way of making herself feel better.

Foaly didn't buy either of these explanations for a minute, of course. For one, Holly had nerves of steal and Foaly doubted that she'd go into shock even if an alien invasion wiped out everyone on the planet and she was the only sentient being left alive. In fact, she would probably set up base camp and start organizing a rebellion with alien defectors. And if she found out Artemis Fowl happened to survive as well, as he probably would, being almost as much of a survivor as Holly, she'd likely be grumbling about him bossing her around as she infiltrated the alien base of operations on his orders. Guilt wasn't a likely explanation either, seeing as how Holly was likely one of the least to blame in the whole situation, and she knew it.

Foaly's fingers, which had been listlessly typing up new bits of program for analyzing the data, hesitated on his keyboard. Foaly was only too aware, uncomfortably so, where a good portion of the blame really lied.

He quickly shook his head, and forced his fingers to pick up the pace, though the gears were still turning in his mind.

Anyway, Holly wasn't usually one to overthink these things. Aside from her recent pension for taking on way too much work than was good for a fairy, it wasn't as though she was acting much differently from the way she always did. She didn't seem depressed or angry, or really upset in any other way. She seemed a little tired and a bit on the irritable side more often these days, but that was only to be expected with all the work.

Foaly punched a button for the computer to do a scan, then kicked his legs to propel his rolling swivel chair over to another screen. He came to a stop in front of it, and tiny white screens seemed reflected in his golden eyes as he tapped in a note to himself. He put an elbow on the desk, leaning his head on his hand.

_But something is bothering her,_ he thought. Foaly had never been very good at reading people or their emotions; he tended to be more of a facts-and-figures kind of guy, and so he usually had to rely on Caballine for evaluations of what other people might be feeling or hiding beneath the surface. However, after working on a daily basis with someone for that many years, even the most self-absorbed and socially inept computer geek in the world couldn't help but notice when something was off-color with a friend. Certainly, Holly had always been eager for aboveground missions so she could breathe the fresh air and fly high over cities and landscapes, and she didn't mind a bit of adventure in the mix, but it hadn't been in her nature to be this eager for the missions themselves, and for any and all work outside that. That was Trouble Kelp's calling, not Holly Short's.

Foaly had only one guess as to what could be troubling the female LEP captain: the one thing that had been getting under Holly's skin almost nonstop for the past five years. A rather irritating Mud Boy, to be exact.

* * *

A/N: So, here I am, back after a longer interval than I expected. (I about edited this chapter to death. XD) It should be clear now that the story's going to start at about six months after the end of TAC (the fact that TLG started at around that same time is a coincidence, though not that astounding a one, as half a year is a good, round number, yeah? (: ).

Anyway, a huge thanks again to levina for betaing this chapter (multiple times!), and helping smooth out a lot of that strange or awkward phrasing, clearing up confusing bits, among endless amount of other issues that always come up in writing. This chapter is so much better than it was when it was "done" that first time, heh, thank you very much! :D (I'm sorry if I've added more typos since the time I edited it again. XD)

Hey, I've never gotten so many reviews when I first posted something, thank you, I really appreciate it! :D As always, I love to hear from you, so don't forget to review! (:

Posted 8/6/12


	3. Synthesis

A/N: Did a little bit of editing since I first posted, hope you don't mind. :J

* * *

Chapter 2: Synthesis

Holly tread slowly along the Haven central walkway, the endless business fronts and signs plastered with advertisements around her tinged red in the twilight. Although on the surface the sun was rising on yet another day for the Mud Men, here in the underground fairy metropolis the artificial light of the sun strips overhead had already dimmed into an imitation of evening.

Despite the fact that the temperature was perfectly moderated, Holly felt slightly chilled, and rubbed her arms unconsciously. She had been feeling cold rather often lately, almost whenever she stopped moving or had a moment to think.

Holly shivered. But just as she was cursing herself for not thinking to grab a jacket when she had stopped by her apartment to drop off the disturbing book from Foaly, she caught sight of the by-now familiar sign welcoming visitors to the mental hospital of Dr. Jerbal Argon. The sign was printed with neat, official lettering that matched perfectly with the spotless white building behind it.

No matter how many times Holly saw that sign, the feelings that rose up within her in response to it were always the same.

As a Recon officer, Holly had before found herself in countless situations where she saw human lives in danger right in front of her. Sometimes she had nightmares about an enormous troll approaching an Italian restaurant full of civilians, or a kraken about to violently shed its skin in the vicinity of a group of hapless humans. There had been other times too, with lives hanging in the balance and a voice yelling in her ear that she was to do nothing.

In that split second, just before she yet again threw her career and her own life into jeopardy as she raced to save someone else she was not obligated to save, somewhere deep in Holly's mind she always had a moment of hesitation. For just a fraction of an instant, she would feel the temptation to hang back.

_If you don't interfere,_ a small voice would say, _you can stay safe._ _Avoid all that trouble you're going to face later. No one would fault you. You're simply obeying your superiors. And who knows? Perhaps the humans will find a way to save themselves anyway._

Every time Holly saw the sign of Dr. Argon's, a tiny spark of that same feeling would rise unbidden within her. She read the inscription yet again, as she had done a hundred times: _Dr. J. Argon Clinic, facility for the rehabilitation of the mentally afflicted._ For just a moment she considered the possibility of turning around and walking back the way she had come. She could walk away right now, and leave the explosion, the ferocious troll, and every other horrible, nightmarish thing behind her. She could leave, and this time someone else could play the hero.

But of course, that impulse was only ever a flicker, a shadow of a shadow, and it was instantly overridden. Holly Short didn't run away, especially when there was someone nearby who needed saving.

So Holly approached the automatic doors at the front. She stopped a little distance from them, standing still just before the point where the sensors would pick her up. She closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath.

"Moron," she muttered. "Don't think so much. Thinking isn't your thing."

Her mind was quiet then, but it didn't help. Because it was in that quiet that she could hear it, the faint sound of worry as it gnawed away at her in the back of her head.

Mental illness. Complex. They were words that flowed out of her mouth so often these days like water from a hydrant: The _illness_ made him act like that, his _Complex_ seemed to be getting better, it was the _illness_ that prevented him from performing at his usual level, he would conquer this _Complex_ before long. She and everyone else always threw out the terms like they were experts on the subject. But even more than they spoke of the illness, they liked to speak of the cure. It wouldn't be long now before he was _cured_, he was making progress toward a complete _cure_.

But according to Dr. Argon, for a disease of the mind, there was essentially no such thing as a cure, not the way one usually thought of one, like the antidote for a disease like Spelltropy. In talking about a mental disease that had developed over time as the result of psychological trauma, when doctors and psychologists spoke of a 'cure,' they were talking about the possibility that the mental patient might at last escape the symptoms of the disorder after a long, laborious recovery process. But once the symptoms had reached a certain level of severity, for all trace of the illness to be eradicated completely was rare, especially considering therapy to help a patient reach a more positive state of mind was far from precise. When a mind had been warped by psychological pressures or injuries, there was no quick or easy way to undo the damage done.

However, Holly had pressed Dr. Argon for every scrap of information she could get, and at last he had finally admitted that, among the various mental diseases he had studied, the Atlantis Complex was one of the few exceptions. There was, in fact, a tested method of recovery with a high success rate, so effective that in most cases the cure was complete and almost immediate. However, this procedure was only used as a last resort, when it became apparent there was little to no hope the patient would recover otherwise. As far as Holly knew, the doctor had told no one but her; she wasn't even sure if Artemis knew about it.

Perhaps the existence of such a fallback should have made her feel more at ease. Instead, Holly felt a sickness deep inside her whenever it crossed her mind, and, selfish as it was, the threat of that cure weighed on her more heavily than even the threat of losing him to the disease entirely.

Somewhere in the back of Holly's head was a tangled mess of strands of so many different worries and fears, and she couldn't begin to sort them out. So they simply sat there, crammed as a large mass that Holly refused to examine closely, but still they weighed her mind down with their bulk.

_Artemis will get better,_ she told herself firmly, the way she had a hundred times. _He __**is **__getting better__. Whenever I go to see him these days, he talks as optimistically as any of us._ This was Artemis Fowl, the genius who took pride in not just achieving the impossible, but making a habit of it. He would not allow weakness to dominate him for long, especially within his own mind.

And Holly believed this. Most of the time.

Holly shook her head, shaking herself from her dark mood. Her expression softened, just as she always made sure it did for these visits, before she stepped forward and the automatic doors slid open to admit her.

* * *

_The two fair children cried, their tears glistening like diamonds on their ruddy cheeks. The noble knight held the two to his bosom, treasuring them as if they were his own. When he finally pulled away, the children clung to his battle-worn armor._

"_Don't go!" they begged._

"_Now, my young ones," said the young hero, "you are free from the tyranny of your evil stepmother and your kindly father has been restored to you. But you must let me go, for I must continue on my journey to vanquish evil and defend other innocent souls such as yours from those that would do them harm."_

_The children stared up in awe at the knight with his clear blue eyes, black hair tousled by the wind, and innate strength that seemed to radiate from his very being. They looked at each other, and then the boy said, "We understand," while the girl sighed, "but you'll always be our hero!"_

_As the two children ran back to the waiting arms of their parents, the knight noticed how the warm rays of the setting sun set off the scene of the grassy clearing and quaint cottage in a dazzling display of beauty. Yet that beauty was nothing to the wonder of the heart-warming scene unfolding before him. The knight felt a glow in his chest, profoundly touched by what he saw. _

_The knight detected a rustling of grass behind him and he turned, his hand flying with the speed of a great falcon's dive to the sword at his hip. But he relaxed as his eyes fell on the familiar face of the princess. For a moment, he became lost in the curve of her high cheekbones, the rich brown skin like wild nuts, the short auburn hair that sometimes stood on end like wisps of fire, the clear hazel eyes __sparkling like gems—_

Artemis stopped reading.

Ordinarily, his stoic disposition kept him calm and cool under the most strenuous of psychological pressure, but even Artemis had to admit that the flowery prose he was currently reading had him on the verge of a breakdown, or at least of losing the all-vegetarian dinner he'd received earlier at the courtesy of his fairy caretakers.

_The author of this work ought to be thrown in a mental hospital,_ Artemis thought. A short pause. _Oh wait, he already has been._

There, that had been a joke. Not bad either. If they had been there, then even Butler and Holly, who were usually the most severe sources of criticism where Artemis's humor was concerned, would have had to laugh.

As Artemis sat on the white sheets of his hospital bed, staring at the offending piece of writing displayed on his laptop screen, he rubbed his temples, trying to prevent the headache he felt coming on.

Artemis had been trawling through the copious amounts of data stored on his hard drive a few hours earlier, and had been surprised to come across an unfamiliar file. Suspecting a prank from Foaly, the LEP's technical advisor, he had opened the document expecting a message with something along the lines of, 'Ha ha! Gotcha, Mudboy. You fell _4_ it.'

Instead, much to his dismay, Artemis had quickly seen that it was not a prank, but a novel written by none other than his alter ego Orion.

Dr. Argon had suggested that both of Artemis's current personalities receive counseling, as the therapy didn't seem to be doing the real Artemis much good. As a result, they had been intentionally switching him back and forth via electric shock. Artemis had noticed lapses in memory for unknown spans of time during these sessions, but Dr. Argon had assured him that it was normal for his mind to automatically step out when the alternate personality's activities seemed to have become repetitive or boring. However, Artemis did not think _boring_ was the term he'd have elected to apply to this revolting travesty of an English novel.

"'I am at your service as always, Lovely Maiden,'" said a voice from behind Artemis in a gently mocking tone. "'The knight swept a low chivalrous bow, though it pained him to have to look away from those enchanting eyes even for even a moment.' _Frond_ that is awful. Sitting around reading sappy romances—d'arvit, and they told me it was Artemis today."

Artemis turned to see Holly Short sitting perched, perfectly balanced, on the arm of the visitor's chair next to the bed, apparently reading Orion's novel over his shoulder. He'd been so busy being mentally nauseous, he hadn't even noticed her come in. That was quite a lapse for him.

Artemis quickly minimized the word processing window and turned toward Holly, who had gotten down and settled back onto the chair, which, having been made to hold Butler, was far too large for her and made her look almost like a doll in its expanse. He took notice of the bags under her eyes and apparent stiffness in her limbs when she moved, but did not comment.

"No, it's me. I was only looking over this manuscript out of curiosity; apparently Orion has been keeping himself rather busy. I will probably delete this once I have seen if there is anything worth salvaging, and destroy the evidence before it ever sees the light of day." He smiled wryly. "Imagine if this was ever published; Violet Tsirblou fans around the world would probably riot."

"Oh, I see," said Holly, with a look of comprehension coming over her face that Artemis didn't fully understand. But then she said quizzically, eyebrows raised, "Violet Tsirblou?"

Artemis considered evading the question, but decided it was not worth the effort. "'Violet Tsirblou' is a pseudonym I've used in the past when I've published a romance novel here or there," he explained. "I found other, more reliable sources of funds by the age of eleven or thereabouts, but even so, you would be surprised how much money there is to be made by fulfilling the fantasies of teenage girls. Certainly, as far as texts go they are not real literature. Not like Sun Tzu's _The Art of War_, or Machiavelli's _The Prince,_ but if you're ever interested, they're €12.95 a copy..."

He trailed off in mid-sales pitch as he noticed Holly's expression, which was almost pitying and maybe even guilty.

Artemis felt a stab of surprise, wondering if she was somehow taking all this talk of 'romance' personally. As an adolescent, she had technically been the initiator during their escapade back in time, but they had decided to leave that all in the past, he'd thought, and in light of what he had done, it seemed inappropriate somehow for it to bother her. Just the thought of it gave him the urge to count the ceiling tiles again, to make sure there really were twenty-five. He quickly suppressed it, however; Dr. Argon's drug treatments had helped him come a long way in the past few months.

Artemis, unused to being in the position of the assurer on matters of guilt, was uncertain what to say. He decided to play it safe for the moment.

"Something wrong, Holly?"

"Well..." Her face appeared sympathetic, but the corner of her lip twitched as though she was trying at the same time not to laugh. "Well, the truth is, I already knew about Orion's manuscript. Sort of."

"You already knew," Artemis repeated. He suddenly had a massive feeling of foreboding. "What do you mean?"

Holly coughed, the sound suspiciously resembling an attempt to cover up a chuckle. She did look genuinely apologetic, however, as she said, "Actually, I think Orion already signed over the publishing rights to Dr. Argon."

Artemis soon learned that the so-called behavioral specialist had just barely been telling Holly about 'the successful new book written by a hospital patient' on the way to the room, but it seemed she had failed to make the connection until now. "And it's already been published," she added. "Apparently it just came out last week."

"Well, the damage isn't too great then," said Artemis, trying to remain reasonable. "I'll simply convince Dr. Argon to retract the book from stores before too many are able to read it. All I need to do is ask Butler to have a word with the good doctor..."

"...And it's already a bestseller all around Haven. Dr. Argon must have really played it up, though I wouldn't know, since I've been spending so much time on the surface I've been kind of out of it. Foaly foisted a copy on me just before I left Headquarters. Unfortunately."

Artemis sat and rubbed his temples for a long minute, the action doing nothing whatsoever for the pounding migraine he felt coming on once again. Finally, he said, "...No one is ever going to take me seriously as a brilliant criminal mastermind ever again, are they?"

"Probably not," said Holly, patting his arm consolingly. "But on the bright side, you're getting a percentage of the revenues. That's amounting to a good share of fairy gold, from what I hear."

"Gold?" said Artemis, perking up, his headache suddenly receding. Then, sighing a little, he said magnanimously, "Well, I suppose total and complete humiliation while under the effects of several psychological disorders isn't the end of civilization as we know it. Perhaps it could even be said that the experience is a good character builder."

Holly rolled her eyes. "Looks like those psychological disorders haven't done anything to change the fact that Artemis Fowl is like a planet orbiting a personal sun made of gold, as always."

"Interesting metaphor," said Artemis, not bothering to pretend to be affronted. He was still looking pleased about the prospect of profit from Orion's book. But then he blinked and looked thoughtful as he turned back to study Holly's face.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said. "Only I'm surprised. I'd have thought you would be more upset about it yourself."

"Why? I didn't write it. It's your problem." She stopped, obviously unsettled by the look Artemis was giving her.

"Well, you are right of course," said Artemis casually, or as close to casual as the suit-wearing youth could get. "But, seeing as how you are the heroine, I thought your reaction might be a bit stronger."

The room was silent for about ten seconds. Then, Holly laughed. "Oh, you're joking. You have the worst sense of humor, you know."

"No," said Artemis. "After being with my other, less...cunning side for an extended duration, I'm surprised you think you would have escaped. Besides, I believe I'm going to give up the practice of 'joking' entirely. Although I've come up with a multitude of clever witticisms, I've discovered over time my audience is generally not educated enough to laugh." His tone carried the hint of a moody teenager, albeit a thoroughly sophisticated one.

However, Holly seemed to miss most of the last part of that speech; she had more important worries than Artemis's skill at telling jokes, or lack thereof.

"You aren't serious."

"Oh, but I am." Artemis reopened the word processor with Orion's document and, turning his laptop around so Holly could see the screen, he pointed to the passage he had just been reading before Holly had come in.

"This is you," he stated. "Princess Hollina Shortera. It seems Orion thought to protect your identity by giving your character a false name, how thoughtful. I would still advise you to keep this away from Commander Kelp, however."

It was probably a good thing that visitors had to leave all weapons at the door; Artemis could have sworn he saw Holly's fingers twitch toward her hip, where her Neutrino 3000 usually hung.

However, Artemis was saved the necessity of trying to argue that there was no use getting angry at him, since he hadn't exactly had a choice in the matter himself, because at that moment the door swung open and a second fairy visitor entered the ward.

Nº1, the most powerful demon warlock of the century, waddled in with his short stump of a tail drooping behind him.

With his fire-orange eyes, gray reptilian skin, odd markings running over his head and torso, and demonic horns jutting out of his forehead, little Nº1 was enough to make most humans run screaming if they caught sight of him when he wasn't using his appearance-shifting spell. But despite his apparently fearsome features, Nº1 didn't look particularly intimidating at the moment. The little demon stared straight at Artemis with red-rimmed eyes. Both to Holly and Artemis's horror, they saw that, coincidentally, the little demon was clutching a copy of Orion's book to his chest with one clawed hand.

"B-b-beautiful" was all he was able to blubber out at first. After he got a hold of himself, he was able to add, "It was almost as moving as _Lady Hethrington Smythe's Hedgerow_." He came forward and dropped the book in front of Artemis. "Autograph it for me?"

Needless to say, Artemis did not think much of this greeting. "I apologize, Nº1," he began slowly. "But I'm not the one who wrote this."

"But..." Nº1 began, wiping his eyes and sniffling slightly. He pointed a gray finger at the cover, where Artemis's name was written in bold letters beneath the comparatively small font of the title.

Artemis wasn't sure which was worse, his name appearing anywhere at all associated with this book, or the cover itself, which featured a tall, dark-haired youth, who was dressed in a set of gleaming silver-plate armor and staring into the eyes of the young woman in an utterly cliché white princess gown next to him. The scene was topped off by a romantic sunset.

"And to think," muttered Holly, "I thought nearly being drowned in a barrel of animal fat was disturbing."

"Please?" said Nº1, innocent orange eyes wide and shining with hope. "I never realized having something with the creator's own name signed on it before could be worth anything, but I understand it's quite a valued tradition in human culture. Juliet told me."

Those two seem to be getting along a little too well, thought Artemis. He would have to have a talk with Butler about this.

"You couldn't have liked it that much," Artemis stalled, certain that no one he knew would ever let him live it down if he gave in and put his signature inside the cover of such a book. But Nº1 usually got his way in the end, as those who dealt with him always had to consider the possibility that the inexperienced demon warlock could fry someone's brain by accident if they didn't.

"I did," Nº1 insisted, nodding vigorously. "The ending was so touching. Is that how you really feel? Misunderstood? Was all this really like an autobiography?"

Artemis was not sure he wanted to know what happened at the end. "No, it's all a fantasy," he assured the little demon. He muttered as an afterthought, "One that I wasn't fully aware I was having until today."

"I see," said Nº1. He did not withdraw the book, though, and instead looked down at it, then back up at his human friend expectantly. He picked up the pen which he had set down next to the book, and replaced it delicately right in the middle of the cover, as though trying to give Artemis easier access to it.

Artemis looked at the book, then at Nº1, and then back at the book again. He mentally sighed, resigning himself. He picked up the writing utensil gingerly, reluctantly, as though it was some kind of heavy piece of equipment he would be using to perform some kind of taxing manual labor.

Just as Artemis had lowered the tip of the pen to the inside cover, Nº1 cried suddenly, "Oh! Do you think you could personalize it for me? Autographs are supposed to be even more valuable with a little note of some kind, so I heard."

Artemis just stared at Nº1, then noticed Holly's expression. Despite the unpleasant discovery of finding herself featured in the book, he detected traces of amusement in her expression at the sight of his predicament. Artemis decided then that he would salvage _something_ from the situation: there was no need for the LEP captain to be so smug.

"Certainly, Nº1," said Artemis generously, and he noticed out of the corner of his eye Holly straighten a little in her chair, curious. "With all you've done, you deserve much more than this from me." Artemis picked up the book and started writing a quick note addressed to the little demon. As he wrote, he added offhandedly, "You may want Holly's signature as well, if she's willing. I based one of the prominent characters on her, after all."

Holly's hand was twitching toward her hip again as Nº1 said happily, "Oh, that's right! Thank you, Artemis. Holly, would you...?"

Holly's eyebrow twitched, but then she sighed. "Okay, Nº1." Out of the corner of her mouth she muttered, "You are so dead, Fowl."

Nº1 looked shocked. "Holly! You wouldn't say that if—"

But by then Artemis had finished the short note and was handing the book back to the little demon. "Here you go, Nº1."

The demon warlock was so happy that he was distracted from his train of thought. He immediately spun and offered the book to Holly hopefully.

Holly took it, shooting Artemis a poisonous look before she started writing something in a rapid scrawl beneath Artemis's tidy handwriting.

"This is so wonderful," said Nº1 to Artemis. "I don't know how to thank you." His eyes lit up then and he said, "No wait, yes I do."

Once he had taken the book back from Holly, he held it up before him, arms out straight. "In my lessons with Master Qwan, I've been learning some more... _unorthodox_ magic lately. Unorthodox—oh, I love that word."

"More unorthodox than time travel?" Holly asked skeptically, knowing the little demon well enough that it was usually best just to ignore his ramblings about etymology.

"Not that unorthodox," Nº1 admitted. "Just the kind of stuff that the elfin warlocks don't bother with."

Artemis was curious. "What kind of magic?"

Nº1 held up the book before him and the runes on his forehead glowed red for an instant. Electric sparks enveloped the book and the demon pulled his hands apart as though meaning to rip the book in half, but when the veil of magic had faded, they saw that he was now holding two identical copies of Orion's book.

Nº1 grinned, proud of himself. "It's called _synthesis_. You know, sort of a variation on what I did with little Jayjay's brain fluid. Master Qwan said I needed to do a lot of work to refine my technique, but with my magic, I can create perfect duplicates of pretty much any object you want. It doesn't much work on living things, of course, since the copy will be pretty much brain dead, even if it's perfect in appearance."

Artemis nodded. "Like clones. That makes sense. The spark of life in all the living creatures of this world is the one thing neither science nor magic has ever fully succeeded in replicating."

Nº1 handed Artemis the extra copy of the book, looking so happy that Artemis realized there wasn't much point in trying to refuse the gift. Artemis took it, and for a moment could feel the warm buzz of magic in his hands, but it soon cooled and faded.

Nº1 turned to Holly, beaming. "I'll make you one next."

"I already have a copy, thanks," Holly said quickly, putting her hands up as though to ward off an attack.

"Oh..." Nº1 sighed.

Just then a knock came at the door and an elf with a thick muscular neck that reminded Artemis vaguely of Butler poked his head into the room.

"Almost done there, demon? We'd like to be getting you back before they start thinking something's off. They might just send half the LEP down here to storm the building."

Nº1 looked disappointed. "I never get to stay very long," he complained.

Artemis glanced at the guards. Of course the LEP wouldn't want their most powerful warlock spending too much time visiting mentally unstable criminals.

"I'm coming," the little demon said, sighing. "See you later then, Artemis, Holly." With that, he ambled out the way he had come. For a moment when the door swung a little wider to allow him to pass through the opening, they were just able to catch a glimpse of an entire crowd of tough-looking LEP personnel, apparently all there to guard Nº1. Dr. Argon was there as well, looking apprehensive and not at all appreciative of the big elf's 'storm-the-building' comment.

As soon as they were gone, Holly turned to Artemis.

"You are going to pay for that," she said.

Artemis shrugged, hiding a smile. He looked down at his new copy of Orion's book, then sighed. "I didn't get a chance to ask him if he could do that trick with a pure gold bar."

Still annoyed, Holly refused to laugh. "I think that would be against the law," she said dismissively. "Or if it's not, it will be before long. Don't get Nº1 caught up in any of your illegal schemes, Artemis. You know he's still just a kid."

"Indeed," said Artemis, but this time his tone lacked the levity of before. For some reason, her words had brought back another thought that had been coming and going through his mind for the last few months, ever since he had begun to think about the approach of his fifteenth birthday.

_I suppose I no longer will be considered a child before long,_ he thought. _I am nearing the age when the intellect I've possessed my entire life will no longer be considered so extraordinary. Then what will I have?_

Artemis smiled slightly to cover the sudden feeling of melancholy. Since he had begun to develop the Atlantis Complex all those long months ago, he'd started to have these moments of emotional weakness more and more, even outside the fits of paranoia and hysteria over which he had no control. He would be sitting there one minute, feeling almost like his old confident self and certain that he must be close to recovery from the disease. Then the next he would suddenly perceive the reality of his own insignificance in the world, and a sense of crippling emptiness in all the many studies and projects that used to stimulate him would seize him. Everything around him that used to matter so much would fade to gray. Even though the various treatments with Dr. Argon seemed to have helped his state of mind tremendously and suppressed the most overt symptoms of the Atlantis Complex, these moments still came upon him with disturbing frequency. Often at the most inopportune moments.

_Not now,_ he told himself coldly. _If you mean to indulge in an excess of self-pity over a matter so minor, save it for later. A good host does not waste the time of his guest in such a fashion._

But despite Artemis's best effort at reigning in his expression, Holly, of course, did not fail to notice, and probably wouldn't have even without the fairy empathy which helped her sense vaguely what he was feeling. She had known him too long.

"What is it, Artemis?"

Artemis could have rolled his eyes, exasperated with his own behavior. Such sentimentality didn't suit him at all; he might as well just break down in tears and go join a support group while he was at it. Not that it mattered whether he acted like a woe-as-me, sniveling fool or not now, considering that he'd probably already shredded whatever respect Holly had had for him when he'd started counting his words and confessing his undying love to her in endless strings of romantic nonsense.

"Nothing," he said. A niggling part of him might have wanted to speak the truth of his concerns about the future, but he suppressed the impulse. He could make mental projections for such a conversation, and he already knew that Holly wouldn't be able to see it as a real concern in light of all their other problems, and she would be quite correct. He wasn't so downtrodden by the Complex that he was ready to give up what little was left of his dignity. With the intensity of his own self-disgust he felt his strength rise, and he regained his poise.

Artemis made a show of sighing deeply, then continued, "Only that I know I will have to come up with some new money-making ventures before long. I've had this reoccurring dream that my parents are living happily at the manor, squandering the Fowl fortune we built up. However, whatever means I contrive will likely have to be legitimate, aboveboard. That will make things difficult." The corner of his thin lips turned up in a smile.

Holly nodded slightly, but didn't look entirely convinced. Her eyes, with their dark half-circles, stayed on Artemis, and he felt a keen discomfort under her gaze, though he did not allow it to show.

Holly opened her mouth as though to say something, but then she closed it again. An awkward silence followed, and finally Artemis decided it was a good time to change the subject.

"So, you have a copy already," he mused, looking down at the book Nº1 had given to him. "I suspect that to get through it you will either have to be exceptionally bored or possibly masochistic."

"Knowing Foaly, he's probably sending copies to everyone he knows," muttered Holly. "Mulch is going to love this."

Oh yes, Mulch. The dwarf that delighted in making fun of everyone in his vicinity. Artemis could feel his headache coming back.

Artemis studied the front cover of the book once again. Right above his own name was the title, two lines of text in a lacy, almost cursive form of Gnommish. He considered it for a moment, before deciding it was the perfect title to reflect the nauseatingly sentimental material inside.

_Noble Heart_, hm? He could only hope no one took that too literally.

* * *

A/N: So now you know where the title of this fanfiction comes from. I guess for a story like this, it's kind of twisted... But never mind about that.

Thanks very much again to levina for betaing! :DDD (no matter if people don't know who you are. ;p They know now. And I think most people probably don't know who I am either. XD)

Hope you enjoyed the second chapter! I've tried hard to keep the earlier chapters mainly on the light side. (Ever since I saw the first episode of _Evangelion_, I've had this kind of feeling that I want to start what I write with a bit of a laugh, and then build up to revealing darker/more serious things later.) Although, because I ended up doing a lot of rewriting, the more serious first scene ended up going on longer than I originally intended it to... I kept adding things, taking things out, then adding something else, until I lost the last shreds of my objective sense of what's working in there and what's just confusing, so I finally decided to give it a rest for now and move on to preparing chapter 3.

So then, next chapter we'll get back to Opal and start to get the actual plot kicked off. This is one of those stories that's going to take a lot of time to develop, so hope you'll bear with me. :J

Anyway, thanks for reading! Please leave a review and let me know what you thought. (:

Posted 9/18/12


	4. Alliance

A/N: I know this with Spiro and Opal might seem to go on a long time, but setting up a complicated (well, complicated for me, that is) plot is a beast.

Hope you enjoy, and see you at the end! :J

* * *

Chapter 3: Alliance

Things were going well for Opal Koboi, fairy or pixie or fairy-turned-human or whatever the heck she was.

Since the odd girl had first come to Jon Spiro a few months before, all employees who worked in the Spiro Needle had been relegated to other sites to continue their work while the Needle underwent extensive remodeling and upgrades. Many a business journal had called it a last desperate attempt to save the essentially dead company's lost prestige, adding that it would be better for Mr. Spiro to focus on working to make the company more streamlined and functional, rather than spending a fortune on new bells and whistles that just looked impressive.

But little did the general public know that the engineers and construction workers on the ground floor putting up yellow tape and digging up perfectly good concrete by the entrance were all simply a ruse. There were indeed renovations going on inside the building, but they didn't consist of installing the newest, most efficient light sources, or replacing all the computers with the latest, fastest models. The upgrades that were going on in the Needle were literally decades ahead of anything ever created by the human race. Because this technology wasn't human.

Had the many critics been allowed inside the headquarters of this internationally acclaimed communications company, they would have observed very little change in its interior, at least superficially. Only Spiro knew that, though most of it was invisible to the casual observer, his beloved Needle, the central point of all his power for years, was now fitted with new levels of security and control over its inner workings beyond what was comprehensible even to him, and security and control had always been Jon Spiro's middle name.

First, the floors of several prominent rooms had been replaced with an alien substance, a new element in the periodic table which Opal claimed to have created herself using a mixture of magic and science. The shining silver tiles could alternately be as hard as steel or as soft as creamy melted chocolate, as Opal's comparison went, merely by shining concentrated beams of ultraviolet or infrared light on targeted areas. This upgrade made it possible to move quickly and easily from one floor to another, and also to immobilize hostiles, simply at the touch of a button.

Several filter options had also been added to the cameras, including heat and chemical makeup scanners and 'anti-shield' filters, which would theoretically allow one to see fairies who were invisible. Luckily, they hadn't had to use that particular feature yet. In addition, the Needle's underground car park, which had been reportedly filled in due to safety issues, had been converted into a small nuclear reactor facility, a fact of which the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission was happily unaware, so the Needle could be entirely self-powered if need be.

But Spiro's favorite had to be the DNA cannons. Nuclear-powered lasers that could be alternatively programmed to either stun or vaporize any intruder whose DNA was either not on a list of welcome guests or had been specifically added to a database blacklisting the intruder as an enemy.

Many of these projects were already completed, and those still in-progress were all proceeding according to schedule, so Opal said.

And yet, Jon Spiro could not say he was all that pleased with how things were going lately. Even though he was getting all the spectacular, state-of-the-art technology he had dreamed of since the time he had first laid eyes on Artemis Fowl's incredible little cube, he could not help but be annoyed. As a result of this tentative alliance, he now felt more and more that he was being shunted to the side in his own base of operations, like a piece of old furniture that had outlived its usefulness.

Opal Koboi's little minions, comprised mainly of human mercenaries Spiro himself had helped her gather, were as yet unaware of the supernatural element in their activities. In fact, they did not even know that Opal was their real leader, and had not laid eyes on her once since she arrived. Yet somehow the pixie, with the help of her irksome second-in-command, was quickly taking over everything. What was even worse was there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it.

Spiro scowled. The fairy's tendency to only address him when she wanted to make a self-glorifying pronouncement, order Spiro to carry out some menial task, or throw out a casual, condescending remark about his idiocy, did little to help his mood, and Spiro found himself remembering back to that first week just after he had met the dangerous little fairy.

* * *

_**The Spiro Needle, Three Months Earlier**_

Spiro followed Opal down the long empty hallway, the clicking sound of their shoes against the floor tiles echoing off the walls.

The usual personnel had already been completely cleared out of the Needle in preparation for the renovations that were to take place. But about eighty stories below one would find a ground floor crawling with faceless drones in armored suits and helmets with mirrored visors. These men would naturally appear to be no more than those hired as part of the manual labor force to take care of the Needle's remodeling. However, ordinary blue-collar workers didn't wear helmets that filtered their voices mechanically so that each individual in this group was nearly identical to the next, snap to rigid attention when their boss came walking by, have the ability to expertly muscle down a dozen opponents of average strength without breaking a sweat, or possess a long record of brutality and alleged violent crimes.

These "construction workers" were indeed handling the reconstruction work, but that was not to be their primary purpose. At Opal's request, Spiro himself had begun to amass this group of mercenary soldiers. Although he did not admit as much to Opal, Spiro had already been working for years on a list of individuals from the numerous mobs he had dealt with in the past, long before he'd ever met Opal. He had often toyed with the idea of his own private army, but it had never been feasible. Until now.

But even at this early stage, Spiro was already beginning to have second thoughts. No doubt the payoff would be great if their plans were to succeed: with all this access to secret underground cities and highly advanced technology, he could just smell the money to be had. But he was footing the bill for all these enormously expensive endeavors, and if there was one thing Spiro didn't have a lot to throw around at the moment, it was money. Who was to say he wasn't just throwing away any chance he had of rescuing his sinking company, not to mention his own livelihood? Or worse yet, what if all their efforts just attracted the attention of these fairies or whatever and they came to take care of him personally?

Needless to say, after just a few days Spiro's goodwill was already hanging by a thread, and he had been less than ecstatic when the girl had told him she was expecting a very special shipment to come in today. She had willfully refused to tell him the full extent of her plans, those plans which would supposedly restore Fission Chips to its former glory, make it the most powerful firm in the world, and take revenge on Artemis Fowl at the same time, until this shipment arrived.

It had better be brilliant was all Spiro knew. If it wasn't, he had half a mind to ditch out on this scheme right now, and arrange for something bad to happen to this girl to get her out of his hair before his entire remaining fortune drained away right before his eyes, fairy magic or not.

"Re-stationing all my employees, plus getting all the materials you've asked for is going to cost me billions," grumbled Spiro. "I don't have a lot of extra green stuff to blow at the moment. Or did you forget how Fowl bankrupted me four years ago, genius girl?"

Opal's capacity to recognize sarcasm had gone up a level through several years of almost constant exposure to it while imprisoned, but that didn't mean some comments didn't still slip through. "No, I have not forgotten," she said blandly, not even bothering to look up from the device on her wrist as her fingers danced in midair over it as she walked.

An invisible keyboard, if Spiro was to understand correctly. Just one of the many pieces of technology the girl had shown him already that had to be at least a century ahead of the human variety.

"Spend money you do not have, then, if you must," she continued. "That's what Mud Men do, isn't it? When our plans are fulfilled, you will have all the money you could ever want."

"About that." Spiro felt that now was as good a time as any to bring up what he'd been wondering about for a while. In all honesty, it was the only reason he'd gone along with this girl so far. "Why are we even bothering to go through all these hoops anyway? If you're as smart as you say you are, fairy, you could build a C Cube like the one Artemis Fowl had in no time. With one of those, we could take over the world without all those guys downstairs I'm handing out ridiculous paychecks to. We could have all the money in the world, and we can do anything if we have enough cash."

Sighing dramatically in a way that Spiro would soon come to know as an indication that a derisive speech meant to mock someone's intelligence, usually his, was on the way, the fairy-human rolled her eyes and removed her V-goggles, which more resembled orange-tinted safety glasses despite the name.

"There are so many flaws in that reasoning that I don't know where to begin," she said, her tone so patronizing she might have passed as an employee from the Phonetix R&D department. "First of all, Fowl's little cube may seem impressive to _you_, and it even may be powerful enough to topple your race's pathetic excuse for governing bodies. But you forget that fairies have the same technology, and much more. To conquer this world, we must first conquer the race that lies below the surface, the more powerful of the two, obviously. Besides, we will soon have more than enough funds to carry out our affairs anyway; my knowledge of fairy technology will allow us to take as much as we please without the humans being any the wiser once we have this base set up. Possibly before then."

Spiro glared, an expression he found himself wearing more and more often since he'd met this egotistic wannabe queen. Even when she was repeating what he'd already said, she made it sound like her own idea. That got annoying fast.

"Fine," he snapped. "I get it. Fairy technology is great, human technology is trash. But I have a question. You said you escaped fairy prison or something, but if you fairies have such great technology, how would you have managed that?"

"Technically, I escaped incarceration _twice_. It was easy for me because I am a genius, but likely impossible for anyone other than myself. Which is why it is only I who will be able to conquer the fairy people."

Spiro was beginning to wonder if even becoming the richest being on the planet was worth being forced to put up with this. If only he could get one of those electric collars he used to keep on his pet cat, before it had put a scratch on his favorite high-quality white-tiger-pelt armchair. Then all he'd have to do was push a button if he wanted to shut her up. And he also would be able to just force her to give away all her little secrets about this magic technology without having to play it nice.

"Fine, you escaped twice," said Spiro through gritted teeth. "But you know what I mean. If the technology's so fantastic, I'd think it'd be impossible for anyone to escape, no matter how smart they are. You haven't told me anything about how you did it. Plus, if they're really so good, what are you gonna do when those guys decide to come after you? For all you know, they could have the building surrounded right now and are just waiting to make a move."

For once, Opal did not respond with a snide remark about Spiro's lack of gray matter. In fact, she looked delighted at the inquiry.

"Certainly, that _is_a puzzle," she said. "How could even I possibly escape from one of the most heavily secured facilities in the world? A top priority prisoner under twenty-four hour surveillance, never allowed to set so much as a toe outside the cell for any reason. In fact, once, when the city had to be evacuated, they _moved my room_ rather than simply taking me out, because they did not want to risk my escape."

Spiro didn't say anything at first, his eyebrows slightly raised. He had to admit that wasn't bad, though he wasn't about to admit it. Either fairies made it a habit in general to way overdo it on security, or he was dealing with a pretty hefty criminal even by mafia kingpin standards.

Then again, he thought, fairy criminals probably couldn't compare to their human counterparts when it came to sheer ruthlessness and the capacity to commit savage crimes for the sake of greed. This was a_ little girl_ he was talking to, for goodness sake, so if that was the best they could produce, they had a long way to go. She might be at the top of the food chain when it came to doing whatever it took to get power where she came from, the cleverest and the most brutal in getting what she wanted, but that was no doubt by fairy standards. Up here in the grownup world, it wouldn't be long before she found out she was in way over her head.

Spiro resisted the urge to smile. He would use her to get all the information he could concerning the admittedly impressive technology of her people, then get rid of her. After that, he could use the technology to get on with his plans to take every good thing this planet had to offer for himself, and fulfill his lifelong dream of living the rest of his days surrounded by the kind of gross opulence that would have the conservationists screaming in outrage.

Spiro maintained his irritated glare to hide his thoughts. This was not particularly difficult a feat, as a scowl seemed to come more naturally to him than any other expression whenever he was with this girl. "Get to the point, would you?" he said peevishly.

Opal ignored him, however. At what Spiro was sure was a deliberately slow and leisurely pace, she continued, "Of course, I could think of a hundred different ways to escape captivity. Unfortunately, all of them required outside assistance of some kind, or else were simply not discreet enough to be of use. What good would escape do if I was immediately pursued by the entire might of the LEP?

"For my first escape, I had made prior arrangements with two of my subordinates to assist me, and additionally I had been able to set up a variety of special measures. However, the second time around was not so simple. I still required outside help as I had the first time, but none of my subordinates—most of which abandoned me the moment I was caught, I might add—were clever or bold enough to find a way to contact me of their own volition. I also needed a completely new strategy: after all, the same plan, brilliant as it was, was not likely to work twice. But I had no resources available to me from which I might fashion one, at least not one which I could ever hope to execute."

Opal grinned slyly, as though enjoying a private joke. "Honestly, I should really _thank_ Artemis Fowl. Had he not been tampering with time, thus bringing my past self to the present, who knows when the opportunity to escape that prison would have finally come."

Spiro was getting totally lost now, but he wasn't willing to endure more of the girl's sneers to ask her to repeat herself. Instead, trying to sound informed, he said "Time travel. I see. Now, _that_ could be useful."

"But, of course, that power is most likely beyond me now." Opal sighed. "It was about all I could do to contrive to have the LEP and that little demon of theirs send my past self back to her own time without alerting them to my real strategy. She wanted to stay here, you know. She wanted to continue to assist me with my plans, and see them come to fruition herself. But obviously I couldn't have that. The last thing I needed at this point was for something to happen to my past self and for some kind of unanticipated time paradox to destroy the world before I have a chance to take it over."

Spiro silently rolled his eyes but didn't comment.

"Oh, she was of great help to me, don't misunderstand. She made contact while I was in prison and through our combined efforts she was able to carry out the development for my, I admit, somewhat _ambitious_projects. Then she gained me my freedom. But there was precious little she could do after that that I could not handle myself, so I sent her back." She then added, speaking fondly, as though of a treasured daughter or a younger sister, "Poor girl. How naïve a child I was back then."

Opal came to a stop in front of a heavy metal door with a keypad and thumb-print scanner as well as a variety of other security features. This was only one of several of Spiro's secured rooms, where he stored valuables or held meetings he didn't want interrupted.

Apparently the fairy had already hacked the system, because the thumb-print, retina, and vocal scanners all yielded to her as easily as if she had been Spiro himself. Spiro was disconcerted, and even just a little impressed, though he decided to keep it to himself.

Opal did not enter the final pass-code right away, however; instead, she turned back to the empty hallway.

As though on cue, the nearby elevator dinged and its doors slid open to reveal a young man, the insignia of a local delivery company stamped on his crisp, white shirt. Next to him in the elevator was a tall, ordinary-looking cardboard box that was taller than he was, sitting on a two-wheeled dolly.

Well, more like a delivery boy than a man, Spiro thought. Spiro noticed that, despite the official-looking uniform, the kid had a certain slouch in his shoulders that all part-time teens seemed to have lately. Lazy brats.

"Got a package for you, Mr. Spiro," said the lanky teen in a drawl that reminded Spiro of the tone backstreet gang members around Chicago used. The boy wore his cap so the bill hung low over his eyes, and it was turned slightly askew as though to give an air of calculated rebellion against establishment.

"You can't be up here, kid," said Spiro, voice dangerously cold. "That elevator's only supposed to move if someone with clearance scans their finger. How in blazes did you get up here? Who helped you?"

Paying no attention to Spiro, the teen trundled his load out of the elevator and into the hallway, the elevator doors closing smoothly behind him.

"Where d'you want it, _s__ir_?" he asked, speaking the polite word in what had to be the most resentful and disrespectful tone he could manage.

"Hey, I wouldn't ignore me if I were you." Spiro wasn't known for his subtlety when it came to threats. "Around here, people who wander around where they're not supposed to tend to wind up in pieces, get my drift? You're gonna take your little package back down to the first floor and run it through security. Then, if you aren't back in your truck and on your merry way by the time I get down there to check, I'll run _you_ through security. And I really don't think you want that."

"Don't concern yourself, he's one of mine," said Opal, waving a hand dismissively in the general direction of the delivery boy. "He brings the object I've been meaning to show you."

So, he worked for the fairy. She certainly was able to gather support fast. If the kid worked for this criminal, that definitely explained the backstreet-thug impression, despite the teen's relatively slight body type and clean-cut clothes. It was strange though; Opal had been insisting up to now that she was not to be seen by anyone except Spiro. She must have an inner circle of loyal subordinates tucked away somewhere.

"This way," said Opal, turning back to the padlock and deactivating the security so she could open the door, but not before clicking her fingers at Spiro and the delivery boy in a thoroughly obnoxious way, signaling for them to get a move on.

Spiro shot one last glare at the teen. He didn't like teenagers in general, but teens who weren't intimidated by him were even worse. Then he turned and proceeded after Opal into the room.

Making no sign that he found it odd to be taking orders from an apparently pre-teenage girl, the delivery boy, pushing the fairy's package tilted up on the wheels of the transport, followed.

"Close the door, then set that here." Opal pointed at a spot a few feet in front of her, next to one of the bare gray walls identical to the other three that enclosed the expansive room.

The boy wheeled it over to the place Opal specified and carefully slid the object off the dolly.

Opal's eyes were bright with anticipation. "Take it out," she breathed.

Pulling a box cutter out of his pocket, the boy began to shred away the cardboard with expert precision. He moved methodically, cutting along each of the edges first, then carefully peeling away each side to reveal a tall, cylindrical object inside.

Spiro laid eyes on what seemed to be a glass tube sandwiched between two smooth metal cylinders, and inside Spiro could just make out what appeared to be a sort of colorfully painted plastic statue, a weird abstract work that roughly resembled...well, it didn't really resemble anything, except maybe a geometric piece of seaweed with rough knobs sticking out from every side. No doubt those knobs would have some kind of deep meaning to some art postgraduate somewhere, but Spiro couldn't have cared less.

"What is it?" he asked blankly.

"How do you like the centerpiece for the lobby of the new Spiro Needle?" Opal asked innocently.

"Centerpiece? This piece of crap?" Endless riches and power she might be able to give him, but Jon Spiro drew the line at this. "Art—" He spat the word like a curse— "doesn't belong in establishments of_business_, no matter what those Phonetix dweebs think. Art should stay in museums where it belongs. Especially _bad_ art." His beloved _Snow Ghost_ being the one exception, of course, but there wasn't any need to mention that.

To his surprise, Opal responded to this little rant with a small laugh, the first real laugh he had heard since they had met, the sound as clear as the tinkling of bells. Which made it all the more disturbing, really.

"Jon Spiro, that is the first intelligent thing you have said so far," she said. "Perhaps you are not utterly hopeless after all. Indeed, one would have difficulty finding a subject much more useless than the arts."

Opal put her V-goggles back on and tapped something into her wrist computer, reaching out, and for a moment her fingers danced in midair before the base of the statue. She reached forward further and pressed a thumb against a patch of steel just underneath the glass that contained the statue.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, like some kind of raging wildfire, electric blue circuit patterns began to zigzag outward from her finger, snaking over the glass surface and enveloping the the base below.

Spiro lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the sudden blinding light. When he pulled it away, he saw the tube was transformed from what it had been a moment before. The object was still topped with what looked like a thick steel lid and set on a steel base, but now on the previously empty metal surface of the base was a fingerprint scanner, visible right where Opal's thumb still rested. It was accompanied by a number of circular ports and several small screens with readouts in symbols and lines Spiro couldn't understand.

Inside the glass tube there was no longer a statue, assuming there had ever been one at all. In its place was a swirling dark-green liquid like toxic sludge. As Spiro peered closer into its depths, he thought he saw a flash of white. A hand.

Spiro's heart jumped into his throat, but then he cursed himself for reacting like a terrified schoolboy dared to go into a haunted house. He shouldn't have been fazed at all, he knew; he'd seen a lot worse in his day, and caused worse himself, not to mention that he'd never been scared by a horror movie in his life. But there was something in that tube that reeked of human experimentation, and not even Spiro, criminal that he was, had ever dabbled in that particular area of illegal activity.

Spiro turned to the delivery boy to hide his discomfort. "You can go now," he said curtly. There was no need for him to see more than necessary and run the risk of having him tip off one of Spiro's competitors.

"Stay," said Opal, ignoring Spiro. "But go sit over there until I summon you."

For a moment, Spiro's fists clenched convulsively. There was nothing he hated more than someone casually countermanding his orders. How much more of this girl could he take?

_No,_ he said to himself. _No, don't do anything stupid.__ Look at that technology.__ This girl is worth a lot to you, so just keep it together for a little longer._

Spiro breathed deeply through his nose and said nothing.

The delivery boy went without a word, slouching over to one of the conference tables on the far side of the room, pulling out his cell phone on the way. He hunkered down and immediately trained his eyes on the small screen. No doubt to play Tetris or some other stupid time-wasting game. Teenagers.

Opal didn't bother to watch her minion go and had already turned back to the tube.

"We added the hologram as an extra precaution," she explained. "In case anyone looked inside the box. These—" she gestured to the thumb scanner and readouts—"could not be detected even by running one's hands over the surface, as they were made to have no texture. Only I can deactivate the illusion."

Spiro looked greedily upon the object before him, distracted from his own simmering resentment over the girl's offense. It was like something straight out of a science fiction novel: just this one small piece of engineering genius alone was probably worth millions. Maybe billions.

"How would I go about getting one of these holograph things?" he asked hungrily, without taking his eyes off the tube.

"The holo_gram_ is such a common and rudimentary piece of technology, it's barely worth looking at," said Opal, her expression almost pitying. "What is inside this capsule on the other hand...This newest creation of mine, the ultimate blending of magic and science, is _revolutionary_."

Spiro could feel his anticipation building, enough to allow him to let slide yet another thinly veiled insult. "So?" he whispered. "What is it?"

Opal's hand hovered over the console on the base of the tube. One of her fingers moved, apparently pressing an invisible button, because immediately afterward, the liquid in the tube began to drain down into a storage unit in the base.

Opal turned to Spiro. "Before you can understand the true genius of what I have accomplished, I must first explain to you precisely how I escaped captivity the first time."

Spiro had tried to ask this earlier, but she had ignored it. However, he decided not to say anything.

"Five years ago," Opal began, her eyes growing distant as she relived the memory, "I was apprehended by the authorities. However, a year later I escaped. Everything fell into my prearranged plan: first, upon my capture, I put my mind and body into a self-induced coma, knowing I would be sent to the mental hospital which I had already specified when I put aside a fund for such a purpose. There I remained, unconscious, while two of my subordinates already planted at the hospital worked and waited for the opportunity to take me away. However, it wasn't so simple as that—being the dangerous criminal that I was, if I was to simply disappear overnight, I would become the most hunted fairy alive. That would have greatly hindered my plans."

Opal turned back to the tube and so did Spiro, in time to see the dark green liquid finish draining to reveal, as Spiro had suspected, a humanoid body curled at the base of the tube, dressed in what looked like a black, skin-tight leotard.

"So I had a backup plan." Opal's tiny lips curled into a smug smile. "It was ever so simple. The People outlawed cloning hundreds of years ago, but that had never stopped me from pushing that extraordinary science to its limit, exploring it to the darkest depths. You see, I had already had everything set up for a clone of myself to be created. In less than two years, I could have a clone grown to my precise size and even more importantly, possessing my own DNA. No one would be able to tell the difference, not even the DNA scanners the doctor who cared for me used to verify who I was every day.

"Of course, a clone has always been a flawed replica, incomplete. A clone of mine may grow quickly and it may have my DNA, but it's entirely brainless, nothing but an empty shell. However, since I had put myself into a coma, a comatose creature with little brain activity was sufficient for my purposes."

"Hmm," said Spiro. For once, he felt like he followed the girl's explanation. "So you replaced your body in the mental hospital with a clone, while you slipped away to do what you wanted without them realizing it. So whatever might happen, they wouldn't suspect you of being behind it."

"Correct," said Opal, suppressed glee in every aspect of her small, childlike face.

"Huh," Spiro grunted, his version of showing he had to be grudgingly impressed. However, he found her evident self-satisfaction so irksome that he was tempted to ask her how'd she'd managed to get caught again after _that_, but decided it wasn't worth the trouble, at least for the moment.

Instead he continued, "Okay, I get it. But that's history. Like you said, you couldn't honestly expect the same trick to work twice..." He sent a look full of implication at the body in the tube, its long black hair falling into its face, bow lips slightly parted. "Nobody could be that stupid."

Opal was so giddy with delight she clapped her hands. "One would certainly think not," she giggled. Then she composed herself again. "But as it turns out, the LEP _is_ that stupid, stupid beyond belief, and twice as arrogant. Even Foaly, my old competitor, has gone soft in the intervening years since I ceased to be business competition for him. All I needed was the slightest variation, and the same scheme would work again."

"The LEP," said Spiro, the name sparking a dim recollection. "So, that wouldn't be a fairy version of the FBI, would it?"

Opal tapped a few invisible keys before the console as she talked. "Lower Elements Police force," she said. "Law enforcement. So yes, in a general way. Though it would be more accurate to say that the LEP is like the ordinary police, but possesses some separate branches you would consider equivalent to what you call 'the FBI.'"

While Opal spoke, the glass part of the tube slid downward, leaving only two thin wafer bars of metal on either side to hold the top of the tube aloft.

Spiro glared, his suspicions confirmed. So the Cube—or more likely, Fowl through the Cube—had been lying to him about that too. Big surprise.

_Lebanese satellite TV network my foot._

As Spiro fumed, he watched as three slender metal arms slid smoothly out of the tube's base and each tip split to form three circular attachments, one at the end of each arm, like three metal nooses. While one secured itself around the body's torso, the others took the two arms and lifted them up and away from the body for balance. The metal arms set the figure down gently before Opal and Spiro, the thing's dangling feet brought down to rest solidly on the floor, head hanging limply to its chest.

For a moment, Opal seemed completely overcome, too in awe of the creature before them to say anything. She lifted a small, childlike finger to brush the lifeless figure's cheek delicately.

Spiro noticed white callouses and scars on those hands for the first time. His eyebrow flickered in surprise as he tried to imagine this girl ever doing actual manual labor.

For some reason, in seeing this one small detail, a moment of insight flashed across his mind. He consciously comprehended, for the first time, the girl's claim that she was older than he was, and he thought about the experience she would have gathered throughout that long life. This girl was wild, completely unrestrained and unpredictable, capable of doing anything to accomplish her goals. Not a shred of moral feeling held her back from doing any number of heinous things, including it seemed, experimentation with sentient life.

Yet to look at her, one wouldn't guess any of this. She was so small and innocent-looking, just a little girl. Spiro could only imagine how hard she had had to work to inspire the respect and fear she now commanded, if she wasn't just playing up her stories about being one of these fairies' most highly secured and well-monitored criminals.

Spiro knew the frustration of being constantly underestimated and never given proper respect only too well. Growing up as a shrimp and realizing some time in his late teens that he was forever going to be a head or two shorter than most of the men around him hadn't been easy. There was nothing that felt better than being able to grind the noses of those morons who had always tormented and oppressed him into the pavement, after having shown himself capable of gaining the power they could only dream of.

This little fairy girl may be digging her way an inch below his skin, but Spiro had to admit, even if it was only to himself, that she did have certain qualities. Qualities he had to admire.

* * *

A boss who insisted an employee take a day off from work for the sake of the employee's own well-being was as rare in the fairy world as it was in the human one. But if there was one thing that would amaze the average worker more than that, it had to be an employee who would grumble and complain about said day off.

However, Holly Short was known for being something of a tradition breaker. As she sat stationary on the couch of her small apartment, watching hour after hour of dull news broadcasts and equally dull over-the-top dramas while she concentrated on recovering her physical strength, gratitude toward her commander was not the primary thing on her mind.

_I might literally die of boredom,_ she thought, as she flicked past yet another sappy romance in which the protagonist, a young female elf with unnaturally straight teeth and hair dyed platinum blond, was currently in the midst of a lengthy monologue describing the depths of her love for a tall elf with wild, wavy black hair and a dark, handsome complexion.

Holly wasn't typically a particularly early riser, so it was a pity that on the one day she could have slept in, she was so restless and had slept so fitfully that she had ended up getting out of bed even earlier than her normal time. But then, Holly supposed it shouldn't surprise her; it had been a while since she'd been able to get a good night's sleep.

Earlier that morning, after taking a shower and consuming her routine nettle smoothie for breakfast, Holly had stood by the kitchen counter for about ten minutes, drumming her fingers against the old dinged-up surface as she tried to figure out what to do next. Eventually she had slumped and sighed.

Frond, it was pathetic, really. Holly was certain she hadn't always been such a workaholic, but apparently sometime within the past few months her whole life had grown to revolve around her job at Recon. She'd spent so much time at LEP headquarters and on surface missions recently that she hadn't been doing much of anything in this apartment except eating, sleeping, and getting ready for work.

_I haven't had time to read anything for a while,_ she thought at last. Holly made up her mind to brush the dust off some of the reading crystals which were programmed to retrieve digital copies of novels she owned; she never got tired of her favorite action thrillers by author Horri Antowitz. However, after pulling one out, her eyes went over the first few sentences about five times before she finally gave it up as a lost cause, and tossed the crystal aside.

Holly tapped her knee in restless agitation, eyes flickering every which way as she tried to land on something to occupy herself. Eventually her eyes fell to the small coffee table in front of the couch. Which, unfortunately, also happened to be where she had carelessly deposited the copy of _Noble Heart_Foaly had given her the day before.

Now Holly was sitting in front of the television, her eyes half closed, her bunched-up cheek resting against one hand as she pressed the down arrow on the remote again and again, not unlike a Mud Man factory worker in an assembly line, losing more respect for her fellow fairies with every snippet of program she saw. Against her will, her eyes kept drifting back to the overly large book on the coffee table.

_I'm so desperate I'm actually curious about something written by Orion,_ she thought, nose wrinkling. She had already been subjected to a nearly continuous stream of Orion's mindless, deluded chatter before, on more than one occasion in fact, and yet she had the indescribable urge to pick the book up and flip through it. Apparently boredom could do things to a person.

Holly kept her eyes resolutely on the screen as she made the rounds on what had to be at least two hundred channels, thanks to unasked-for upgrades made by Foaly.

_Two hundred channels,_ she thought, _and nothing but bad daytime dramas and cooking shows._ Well, she had come across one documentary, apparently a lengthy commentary on the life of a certain first-ever female Recon operative, but she'd skipped past that one in a hurry. It didn't gratify Holly in the slightest to hear herself talked about like one of the old timeless heroes from the Battle of Taillte, especially when they seemed to purposely get so many of the details of her "heroics" completely wrong. After just a few lines, she could feel her ears turning scarlet. Holly would have rather stumbled onto a documentary vilifying her as an unstable wild card and the worst thing ever to happen to Recon, with maybe a few snatches of interview from former Commander Ark Sool; then at least she could have had a good laugh.

Holly's eyes flickered unwillingly back down to the coffee table. She ought to take that book and throw it in a dark corner somewhere, where she couldn't see it. That obnoxious cover was going to give her an ulcer.

Holly considered a moment, then, with some effort, lifted herself off her hand and leaned forward. She reached out until her fingers found the novel's wide spine. For a moment her hand lingered there, fingers curling under the front edge of the cover, as though to draw it back. Then she flipped the novel onto its front and breathed a small sigh of relief as the gag-worthy romantic sunset disappeared from sight. She should have done that an hour ago.

However, Holly's eyes were attracted to a small bit of writing on the relatively plain back, apparently some kind of note from the publishers. Before she could stop herself, she read, _In keeping with the traditional Mud Man format, we are pleased to__ present to__ you this title distributed in the once-popular but now outdated 'book' style typical of Mud-Man reading material distribution.__ However, the pages are fashioned out of a newly synthesized substance (patented by Foaly, head technical consultant for the LEP and holder of over a __hundred different patents for technological developments) instead of ordinary Mud Man materials, so no trees were injured in the making of this product._

Holly's lip twitched at the same time her eyes narrowed, mingled amusement and irritation. Actual bound books were indeed an outdated and inconvenient means of handling novels and such; who wanted to lug around an entire book when a fairy could carry a thousand books on one small crystal? But leave it to Foaly to have enough nostalgia for an old style to want to invent a way to bring it back. And speaking of Foaly—backstabbing centaur who went around aiding and abetting in the production of such humiliating atrocities of writing as this novel—he was so dead.

"—but the LEP wants everyone to rest assured that all is under control."

Holly blinked, startled from her thoughts, and her gaze quickly returned to the television.

"Again, the escaped are three demons and a goblin," said Corporal Lili Frond. Frond, as always, was immaculate, in full dress uniform and makeup perfectly applied. Currently she was wearing the grave expression she always adopted when asked to make some announcement on behalf of the LEP. Over the years, Corporal Frond had become something like the unofficial public-relations fairy for the LEP; Holly could only suppose the LEP had discovered that bad news was often accepted more gracefully when it came from a pretty mouth.

"The goblin has since been identified as F'Skell Savant," Frond continued. "The only goblin ever accepted into the LEP training program, later dropped when he was convicted of appropriating LEP equipment and selling it on the black market. The demons are alleged members of a faction that has recently arisen within the demon community, which is calling for a return to the societal structure they practiced for centuries on Hybras. These four violators have not been successfully tracked down and apprehended as of yet, but according to Recon Commander Trouble Kelp, it is only a matter of time. If anyone has any information, please contact the LEP immediately at the com-code you see on your screen."

There's that demon and goblin thing again, Holly thought. It wasn't as though it was much different than what the LEP usually had to deal with, especially for Holly's line of work, but the fact that it was taking so long to resolve was a bit worrying. Suspicious, even. Demons and goblins didn't generally get along, and a goblin didn't have the brains to evade the LEP without slipping up eventually. Demons were, in general, a cleverer bunch, but they hadn't been back in this dimension a full year, and couldn't have the reserve of experience and know-how such as the likes of Mulch Diggums had, which would help them keep getting around the LEP's net.

Holly shrugged to herself just as Frond's expression shifted from the obviously plastered-on look of grim concern to one of enthusiasm.

"Now, next on the agenda, high command is talking about changing the color of the standard LEP uniform yet again. Some have suggested a light beige—"

And somehow, Frond had managed to sneak fashion into the report. Maybe the current blue didn't go with her eyes.

Holly moved to change the channel so quickly that she nearly dropped the remote. But as her finger found the down arrow again, she hesitated, then hit 'power' instead and the screen clicked off. The programming was not going to improve the longer she sat here, so there wasn't any point sitting here flipping endlessly through brainless channels. And she didn't really feel like watching television anyway.

_Come on,_ she thought, staring at the blank screen. _There has to be something to do._ She refused to let her eyes wander to the novel again.

Maybe what she needed most was just to get out of this dull apartment and go do something. She could head down to the gym for a workout...but no, she had been given the day off because she was supposed to be relaxing. Trouble probably wouldn't be too happy if he heard she had spent the day out pumping iron and pounding rubber on a treadmill.

Maybe she could just go for a leisurely stroll along the streets of Haven; that wouldn't be too strenuous. She could window-shop at her favorite equipment stores and daydream about owning one of the top-of-the-line, way-beyond-her-budget wing rigs on display. However, Holly's thoughts turned to the claustrophobic streets of the over-populated underground city, fairies crammed from one side of the street to the other as they bustled this way and that like worker ants in an ant nest, and she gave up on that idea, too.

_I could just go back to bed_, she thought wryly. The ache in her limbs and in the back of her head was telling her that wouldn't be such a bad idea. The only problem was that Holly knew that, if she went back to her room and fell down on her futon, she would just lie there, staring at the ceiling the same as she had all that morning. She needed some distraction, some activity, so her thoughts wouldn't have time to wander.

Holly sighed and was suddenly glad she had the thing with Trouble that evening to look forward to. That would take her mind off things.

Holly smiled in amusement. Maybe, she thought, that had been Trouble's plan all along: force her to take the day off so she would be bored out of her mind and desperate for something to do by the time they met, hence guaranteeing that she would enjoy the outing.

Holly blinked, surprised at herself; she shook her head. No, that wasn't Trubs' style at all. Trouble Kelp was always straight-forward and direct in everything he did, so even a manipulation as small and harmless as that wouldn't even occur to him. A strategy of that kind was more like the kind of arrangement Artemis would try to set up, if he was so inclined. Besides, for Trouble's part, there wouldn't be any particular motivation behind it. No matter how many snide comments Foaly or other coworkers liked to drop around the office these days, her and Trouble's relationship was simply not like that.

It was several months ago now that Trouble had first asked her out. Not so long after he'd finished reading her the riot act her for going back in time without the LEP's say-so, he'd seen her passing by his office one day and called her in for an informal chat.

"Time just seems to shoot by these days, doesn't it?" he had said, grinning, but with a strange touch of something else in his tone she couldn't identify. "For me it does, anyway. When you're working from practically the moment you get up in the morning to the moment you hit the bed, I guess everything's a blur." Then his demeanor had taken on a tinge of melancholy—unheard of in Trouble Kelp. "But I happened to be thinking, Holly. We've barely seen each other since that whole fiasco with the demons, haven't we? I've got to say, ever since you got back I've found myself missing the old times. Remember those days when a bunch of us would just be getting off our shift, and we'd all head down to the pub, or walk around the city park and try to force down the stuff they serve at the Emporium? All the while complaining about what fresh hell Beetroot put each of us through this time." He'd still been grinning, but his eyes had become oddly serious as he had said, "I know we can't get those times back now. But you and I, we can still do something just for old times' sake, can't we? Go out somewhere, and try to sort out how much things have really changed since you left. What do you say, Holly?"

Holly wouldn't bother to deny it. At that moment she'd felt an ecstatic leap in her stomach, and for a full second she'd been able to forget all about all the things nagging at her and dragging her down ever since her and Artemis's ill-fated quest to save Angeline. Without even stopping to think about it, she had answered, "Sure, Trubs. Anywhere you want."

But the reasons behind that surge of fierce joy right then were far from what her annoying associates at the LEP liked to imagine. Her thoughts weren't so simple as that; for Holly, nothing was ever simple these days.

Although Holly wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, Hybras had temporarily turned her world on its head. Holly had discovered, much to her dismay, that no matter how confident a fairy thought she was, no matter how recon-jock-level tough in a firefight or cavalier after having escaped by her bootstraps from a burning building, leaving for three years and coming back was not something that could just be waved aside. It was like being the kid fairy who had moved to Atlantis because of a parent's job relocation, who spent every single day while he was gone thinking about his old friends and all the worries and cares of his old life in Haven, looking forward to seeing everyone again—only to find, when the long-awaited return visit to his old haunts finally came, all his classmates were talking about things he didn't know anything about, the new places, the new bits of ongoing gossip, the new sources of aggravation, the new friends of all his old best friends. And in that, being forced to realize that he was now an outsider, that all that time he had been cherishing a place where he thought he would always belong when it didn't exist anymore, his old life no more than a remnant of an old memory.

Before Hybras, Holly had considered Trouble one of her best friends. He was someone who she could rely on to have her back, even when she was in hot water with the Council again or tangled up in some affair that might turn into a global catastrophe. But during that three-year absence he had been appointed Recon commander, and when she had come back he was so busy with his endless responsibilities that for some time they had hardly spoken outside of work or about anything that wasn't work-related.

Holly knew he could have made a little time, even if it was just a few minutes here or there to make mention of who won the last crunchball match in the league, or complain about something some drunk, blowhard gnome had said at Trouble's favorite local tavern, if he had wanted to. But the simple, depressing fact was that Trouble had gotten used to a life without his old friend Holly Short in it, and with all the dangerous operations going on he had to oversee, re-adapting his life back to accommodate Holly's sudden reappearance wasn't exactly high on his list of priorities.

Holly had just about given up hope that Trouble would ever make even the slightest effort to move their relationship back to where it was before, or even really become friends again, when Trouble had "asked her out." It was like a door she had thought had been closed in her face had been inched open again. Trouble was more of a fairy of action than of words, so even though he had not expressly said that he was ready to try to put things back to how they were, Holly thought it was a pretty good indication of a step in that direction. His way of "saying" what he would never actually say in so many words.

For that very first date, the one before she had first learned of Artemis's Atlantis Complex, they had gone to a kind of CSI-type thriller that everyone Trouble knew had been recommending. Afterward, they had stopped by a greasy veggie-burger joint, where over drinks they had systematically gone through and mercilessly trashed everything in the movie from start to finish, pointing out every flaw or inaccuracy in the equipment or settings.

"Where do they get all that money, that's what I'd like to know," had been Holly's comment. "I swear, that model of wing-pack looked like it came out last year, and I don't think I've ever seen anything outside Section 8 that's been out less than half a decade. Is it fair that a movie like that gets a bigger budget than the actual LEP?"

Holly hadn't felt so jazzed in a while, and the next morning when Foaly had dropped a casual question about what she'd done last night, she had found herself relaying every detail without even bothering to consider the possible consequences.

Since then, whenever she and Trouble weren't completely overrun with their LEP duties, they had gone on the occasional excursion, a day at the gym here, a crunchball match there. It was one of the few good things that had happened lately.

Of course, for a while there had been a price for enjoying herself. When the 'dating' had first begun, the excursions, while fun for the most part, were also a vague source of stress. Despite how glad Holly was for Trouble's renewed interest in their friendship, she felt in the back of her mind a kind of nervous buzz intermingled with the sense of relief. Beneath what she insistently told herself about these just being casual outings between friends, the 'boyfriend' comments Foaly was constantly making did get to her, and the idea that these outings were technically _dates_ made her feel uneasy.

The real fact was, which she would not have admitted to Foaly if the entire planet was on fire and she about to be pushed into an active volcano, Holly didn't even want to think about the concept of 'romance' right now after her episode with Artemis. Thinking about that was still as raw and uncomfortable a few months later as it was when it had first happened, and she felt a hot spark of shame prick her chest whenever a memory from that time lashed out at her. It was the kind of shame that didn't have just one source, but many sources, most of which Holly didn't understand or care to examine too closely. Holly had decided to deal with this psychological-scarring-waiting-to-happen by thinking about the ordeal as little as possible, and studiously trying to avoid everything that might remind her of it.

But the anxiety over the concept of a 'date' had come and gone. By now Holly had gotten used to being out and about with her old friend again; she had relaxed little by little, settling into a familiar rhythm until now she felt little danger. She was able to dismiss all the deeply ingrained stereotypes she associated with dates altogether. A _date_ didn't have to be something intimidating or momentous, like it was in cheap chick-flicks or sappy daytime dramas. It didn't have to involve elaborate finery, clinking champagne glasses, or awkward smiles and clumsy attempts at conversation. A date could just be going somewhere and having a good time with a friend.

Unfortunately, it appeared that the majority of the gossips working at the LEP were not so enlightened. Ever since Foaly's indiscretion, Holly had been forced to put up with insinuations and self-delighted jokes left and right about her and her commander's supposed less-than-professional relationship. She explained the real situation again and again, but she got the sneaking suspicion that no one believed her.

What was most annoying about it, however, was that none of them, including Foaly, seemed to realize that it was the very fact that her and Trouble's relationship was straight-forward and easy that Holly liked best about it. She honestly didn't want an exciting romantic intrigue, she just wanted to reestablish frayed ties with an old friend.

Holly shook her head, trying to shift away from her rambling thoughts. She tossed the remote onto the coffee table and leaned back into the couch with a sigh.

_But such is life, _she thought. Being the subject of rampant, often embarrassing rumors wasn't exactly new to her, so there was no point getting bent out of shape about it. However, there was one last thing about the whole issue that tried her patience almost beyond the point of endurance.

Apparently, even Artemis was inclined to jump on the Let's-all-make-boyfriend-cracks-at-Holly bandwagon, and every once in a while he would drop some sly comment about bivouacs or Trouble's supposed animosity toward Orion. And when that happened, she would have the sudden urge to knock out his teeth. Unfortunately, unlike with Foaly or some overly nosy sprite she happened to be passing in the hall, with Artemis she couldn't defend herself. Holly just knew if she heatedly denied the accusation the way she did with Foaly, he would get a smug expression on his face, and his eyes would glitter with his usual egotism. _So,_ he would probably think to himself._ You wanted __**me**__ specifically to be aware of that, did you Holly? How very flattering. _

Of course, Artemis almost certainly already knew the truth about her and Trouble's relationship, seeing as how he knew everything. Most likely he only made remarks of the sort he did because he so deeply enjoyed getting on her nerves. If she did fly off the handle about how Trouble wasn't her boyfriend, he would probably only smirk and tell her in that usual tone of his, the one that made him sound like he was talking to someone barely out of preschool, "You are clearly stressed, Holly, perhaps you have been working too many hours at the LEP. First, try taking a few deep, calming breaths. Then you had best go home and get some greatly needed rest." There was nothing Artemis loved more than successfully provoking others so he could have the opportunity to point out their shortcomings, so if she let that happen, she knew that she would end up feeling like she had fallen into his trap.

_I am seriously going to make you pay for every one of those snippy little comments, Artemis Fowl,_ Holly thought. _Just you wait. I should have milked it for all it was worth when Minerva visited you at the __clinic a few months ago, but I promise, next time she comes around..._

Holly stopped. Momentarily she had been absorbed in thoughts of how she was going to get back at her human friend for something he had done, which was far from unusual. But at the thought of Minerva and that visit back in the depths of winter, Holly grew sober again.

That time, when Minerva had been allowed into Haven just as Angeline had, as she had been coming back from her private visit with Artemis and about to leave the clinic, Holly had spoken to the girl, and they had had a kind of conversation. It was a conversation that had told Holly so much, yet nothing at all, and over the months it had played against her will in her mind again and again as she searched for better understanding of Artemis's disease. Minerva had not been at all surprised that Artemis would develop a psychological disorder like the Atlantis Complex. Of course she hadn't; Minerva was so similar to Artemis, a prodigy standing in a class by herself, she knew how Artemis thought, how he felt and viewed the world, without even needing to know him.

Holly pressed her fingers to her temples. _There now, you've gotten yourself thinking about the stupid mental illness again. You're trying not to think about it, idiot._

Holly's eyes drifted irresistibly to the book sitting on the small table once again.

_Don't. Don't look at it. Don't think about it._

But maybe it has answers, she argued with herself. Flowery and nauseating as a book entitled _Noble Heart _probably was, it _was_ written by Artemis. A deluded, dormant part of his psyche brought to life by a mental illness, maybe, but it was still him. Perhaps, underneath all that nonsense, she might find something out about the way Artemis's mind worked, and about his condition. The real reason she tried not to think about the Complex was because every time she did, every time she laid awake nights staring at the ceiling as she tried to figure out what she might do to help her friend, the more she would feel a deep sense of helplessness settle over her, her thoughts spiraling down into a kind of oppressive anxiety that she could not escape. Because, no matter what direction her mind went in, she would always reach a dead end, and find herself trapped by the certainty that there was nothing she could do, not without running the risk of making his condition worse. But if Holly _could_ do something, figure things out so she could say she understood her friend just as well—or better—than Minerva Paradizo...

Holly gingerly picked up the book, rotating it back over to the front. However, seeing the embarrassing sunset cover again, she suddenly felt slightly self-conscious.

_I'm just curious_, she thought defensively, as though trying to explain herself to an incredulous or mocking coworker. _There's nothing wrong with that._ Holly added to herself, further steeling her resolve, _Besides, if I __have__ been written into it as a character, anyone would tell me I'm better off learning what Orion said about me from the source, instead of waiting to get all the gory details from Foaly and Mulch._

Holly shot a furtive glance over her shoulder at the closed door, then, almost guiltily, carefully pried open the cover. Inside, Holly found an author's note addressed to the reader, and even though it was written in the same ridiculous style she'd caught a glimpse of the day before, what she saw there sent an inexplicable chill down her spine.

* * *

A/N: The Opal-Spiro conversation in this and in chapter four were originally meant to be one chapter, but I thought it would work better split up, since it seemed a little long just as one chunk. (The Holly-scene was originally just a short snippet, but it got longer and longer as I thought of new things to add or explain, lol. Haha, I thought I was going to get away for the most part from the headache of trying to arrange passages clarifying Holly's psychological state after I finished 'The Other Paradox', but it looks like that's not going to happen. XD I guess I'm too much in the habit now...)

So, like I said at the beginning, this chapter is mostly for plot-setup purposes, so not much happened. You might be wondering, 'What happened to the plot in the summary?' Don't worry, we'll get to more of that next chapter; I think for that reason chapter four has always been one of my favorites to work on for this story.

I think I've said this before, but just to warn you, the buildup in this is going to be kept at a fairly slow pace, especially in comparison to the style of the original AF books. It's not a mainstream way of handling a story these days, but I think it's more suitable to my writing style and the way my mind works. (You might think of it as the 'Lord of the Rings' or the 'Crime and Punishment' approach to storytelling, lol.) Even though I have to admit that when I first started reading the AF series I loved the way Colfer moved the plot along so fast and cut it down basically to its essentials, after really getting into it and reading through it six times or whatever, I have kind of started to wish it was more like _Lord of the Rings_, with more detail about the setting, how the non-human societies are set up, their histories of legends and so on, including the minor ones, etc. (There is some in AF, of course, but when you get a little obsessed, you see there's room for a lot more. (; )

So then, thank you so much for reviewing the last few chapters! (Did I forget to say it before? Well, I'm saying it now :J) I really appreciate the feedback, and you know if all you can think of to say is that you read it, I love that too. (: (Oh, and I'm not sure if I've said this already, at least for this story, but criticism's always welcome too. Trust me, practically every single time I post, by the time it's up there I've half convinced myself it's terrible and you're all going to be incredibly disappointed, so a review that says, 'Holly seemed kind of OOC in this spot to me, but I still enjoyed this other part' or something like that really psyches me up. :J)

Thanks for reading, please review and I'll see you next chapter! (: (And once again, TONS of thanks to levina, for helping getting this monster ready to put up. Blood, sweat, and tears, that's all I can say.)

Posted 10/10/12

Edit 5/28/13: The second section of this chapter has been bothering me for simply ages now, and I finally got around to doing some rearranging. I added a few things in and cut some things out (most notably, I cut out the paragraphs related to explaining Holly's lack of a dating life. I still think it's an interesting avenue to explore, since Holly's previous romantic experiences or lack thereof are not given to us in any detail in the original series, and her personality is such that I think that part of her life experience could be written a variety of different ways. But I didn't think it was all that important for this story, and this scene in particular needed some trimming down. It's still too long as it is, but...) I also made changes so that Holly's initial cursory examination of NH would be in the present tense, rather than in the past tense as something she's remembering, as the past-tense arrangement felt kind of unnatural to me. (The flow of that part still bothers me now, but I'm going to have to have a brainwave more major than this one to improve it from what it is now.) I also tried to direct more of the focus on the book NH, since Holly's decision to read it is the primary purpose of this scene.

Anyway, it's not hugely different from what it was before, but I hope its a little better. (: I know there won't be a lot of people who reread this, (and even if you do, without being able to make a direct comparison, it may be hard to see what I changed anyway) but I really wanted to improve it for any new readers who happen to come along.


	5. Web of Lies

A/N: Yes, more plot setup. ;J

* * *

Chapter 4: Web of Lies

Opal stared at the face of her clone, and from her own rapturous expression, one might have expected that at the very least she had just witnessed a divine moment, complete with holy light and a chapel choir singing in the background.

"I'll never get used to it," breathed Opal with a sigh. "The beauty..."

Spiro resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. Morally depraved, yes, that was a good description for this girl, and that apparently included narcissism. So much for admiration.

"Right," said Spiro, smiling through gritted teeth. "It's wonderful, really wonderful. But I'm a busy man, pixie. So, if there's an ending to this nice little story, I'd appreciate it if you'd just skip to the punchline already."

Opal's eyes were still riveted to the sleeping face of her clone as she replied, "I spread out the information because it occurred to me that your tiny Mud Man brain would only be able to absorb it if I 'spoon-fed' you a bit at a time, as you humans say. As tedious as it is for me to explain step by step the patently obvious, you will not be able to appreciate the brilliance of the strategy I am employing if I do not explain it. So you would do well to be grateful for the consideration I am showing you, human."

Spiro said nothing. Instead, he practiced a mental exercise he had adopted over the years for times such as these, when, in order to get what he wanted, he had no choice but to hold his temper in check. Spiro had once in his youth been told by a psychiatrist that, whenever he felt inclined to violence, he should stop and count to ten, or until he felt calm enough to stop himself from acting rashly. Spiro had later had the psychiatrist pushed through a skyscraper window, but some time afterward he'd come to see that the advice wasn't so bad after all. Spiro did feel better after mentally counting to ten and beyond—in the billions of dollars to be made from the individual who was aggravating him.

Spiro was glad he had held back and not further slowed the conversation when Opal then picked up the explanation where she had left off.

"The LEP had already witnessed my trick with the clone once before," she said. "They, knowing the genius that I am, would never expect me to be so tiresome as to attempt the same deception twice. Therefore, by that very circumstance, they were made complacent, confident that they could easily detect the signs should the same thing occur again. If Opal Koboi were to suddenly have gone into a second coma, for instance, suspicion would immediately be aroused."

Opal delicately slipped a finger under the pointed chin of her clone and lifted the head up from where it had been hanging to its collarbone. Opal turned and placed her cheek against the clone's to look up at Spiro from the vantage point of her double. The clone's head lolled against Opal's. Spiro noticed that its eyes had opened slightly; perhaps that was the body's automatic response to being removed from the solution and placed in the presence of physical stimuli. The eyes were dull, lifeless eyes that stared at nothing.

The two Opals looked for all the world like a pair of young, beautiful twin sisters. Like ghosts from a horror film.

"So then," said Opal. "How would I replace myself with a sedate, brainless clone without anyone noticing?"

"Give it a brain?" Spiro suggested, almost half-heartedly as he suspected he was only setting himself up for a 'someone should give _you_ a brain, idiot' comment. But to his surprise, Opal smiled.

"Apparently you aren't so dimwitted as I thought. That is indeed the only solution, really. So that is the difficulty I turned my mental faculties to solving while I was in prison. But I knew even then that, should I succeed, there were still two problems. One, unlike the first time I escaped, I could not pass off a naturally grown clone as myself. After all, my body is quite...altered. But as you can see..." Opal put an arm around the slender shoulders of her unconscious double, parting the dark hair around the creature's ear and gesturing to her own.

Spiro waited about three seconds for her to explain what she was driving at. When she didn't, he glared. "See what?"

"Pointed ears." Opal dropped her arm and frowned at him disapprovingly. "Have you no retentional capability? Fairies have pointed ears. But see here that my ears have obviously been modified with surgery, and that the ears of this clone are the same as mine."

Spiro scowled. Apparently she had forgotten the fact that he'd never laid eyes on another fairy, and no matter what she said about retention-whatever, he knew for certain she had never mentioned it before. Spiro took a second to count again. One billion. Two billion.

"Also, my body is still continuing to grow, thanks to the pituitary gland I had implanted. I am now close to two feet taller than I once was, and my height is still increasing. Consider it: even utilizing our best methods for speeding growth, growing an ordinary clone to the size I was before I had the gland takes a minimum of two years, so to grow the clone to the size I am now would take even longer. In that length of time, many opportunities for escape would have long-since passed me by.

"But I uncovered a new method. My past self possesses immense magical reserves, and so was able to put to use an old demon art. A direct _synthesis_, or replication, of my body bypassed all those minor annoyances. Apart from our minds, this clone and I are absolutely indistinguishable, from our human pituitary glands down to every blemish and scar—if there were any blemishes, that is. And of course, synthesis is a relatively quick process, if a bit exhausting, so that eliminates the problem of time."

"Oh, obviously," said Spiro, who hadn't taken in above twenty percent of this speech. However, he did note that she had mentioned her _past_ self possessed immense magic. Did that imply she herself was significantly weaker now?

Spiro also had to wonder how she'd managed to have this synthesis or whatever performed on her while she was in prison, but decided it wasn't worth the condescending comments he'd have to weather if he asked. He was quickly nearing the end of his patience anyway. Instead, he asked tersely, "And problem two?"

"There are two things cloning technology and magic could never reproduce," said Opal. "One, of course, is magic itself. The other is experience—memories of things that have happened that contribute to the individual's overall personality. In that light, even if I were to overcome the largest hurdle in the science of cloning and create a perfectly functional brain, add that spark that makes something truly _alive_, it still wouldn't be _my_ brain, with all my own memories. Were the Opal Koboi in prison to appear to abruptly lose all her memories, it would draw nearly as much suspicion as an Opal Koboi who is suddenly brain-dead. With enough close scrutiny, an irksome overachiever somewhere might realize the truth, especially if some of my own activities led to particularly suspicious occurrences."

"I get that much," said Spiro, eying the doll-like clone disconcertedly. "What's your point?"

"The point is, dull-witted Mud Man, that I required something that would allow me to get around that inconvenient detail. Something brilliant. However, the more I considered it, the more impossible it appeared. I had spent years, no, _decades,_ trying to further advance the knowledge pool surrounding cloning technology, to take the next step of giving a clone a viable brain. I did so even when that area of research was outlawed and even Foaly abandoned the science, after it was labeled 'immoral' by the simpletons in legislation. But I made few new discoveries and grew no closer to a breakthrough, so how could I even begin to imagine making a true copy of my own unfathomable brain?

"But as I wasted away in prison, unable to put my mind to taking in new information, unable to work on creating all the new things I knew this world needed, as I was born to do—essentially trapped inside my own mind once more even though I was not in a coma—the answer came to me. So simple, so obvious." Her eyes danced, seeing that she had Spiro's complete attention now. She was silent for a moment and Spiro didn't know whether she was waiting for his prompt or if she was just trying to build the tension.

_Just get on with it already._ Why did everyone Spiro associated with recently have to be so melodramatic?

Opal smiled and said, voice gentle but buoyed upward by an underlying note of exhilaration, "After all, why should I bother to create an entirely new brain, when my own is so vast that there is more mental capacity than even I can ever fully use? If creating a new brain is not an option, I can simply connect the clone's empty mind to my own."

Spiro deflated slightly. This was beginning to remind Spiro of a bad sci-fi movie he had gone to see recently. Except he found it somehow sounded possibly even more outlandish and cheap in real life.

Opal leaned in toward her double again and tapped her temple. "This clone and I are linked," she explained. "All that was needed was for me to have a device implanted in my head and another placed into that of the clone, first a transmitter that sends my thoughts, and then a receiver that takes those thoughts and inserts them into the empty brain. The devices are, of course, organic and therefore completely undetectable, as are the untraceable signals they send out. Even for the great Foaly."

Opal had dropped that name before. "Foaly?" said Spiro. "You said that was your competitor or something right? Before you got caught."

Her attention now drawn to a name near the top of her revenge list, Opal apparently didn't notice her new associate's tone on that last part. "I suppose you could say that. Though I would prefer 'mortal enemies' to 'competitor.' Irritating excuse for a living being if I ever saw one. Even if the LEP had not locked me up and taken away so many years of my life, I might still have been tempted to raze the whole of Haven to the ground just to rid myself of him."

Spiro could definitely relate. Some of those Phonetix morons were _still_ gloating about their triumph over him and his company even after all these years, sending him annoying emails and whatnot. If things went according to plan here, though, they would soon live to regret it.

Spiro gazed at the lifeless clone for a minute. He swallowed the temptation to remark on how it didn't look very alive at the moment and said instead, "Interesting thing, that clone. But still, even if you turn it on and have it all hooked up to your brain, that would mean you'd have to control two bodies at once. I can't imagine anyone doing _that_ very effectively, no matter how smart they are. Unless..."

An idea came to Spiro then, and he could hardly contain his excitement at the possibilities that came with it. "Unless, you use the clone like a surrogate body. Go to sleep somewhere and just live the most dangerous parts of your life through the clone. It would be like having extra lives, like a cat or something."

Opal's returning grin was indeed very catlike, but instead of congratulating him she said, "As usual, human, you completely miss the point. Being able to control only one body at a time while leaving the other comatose would defeat the purpose of my plans to fool the LEP. Would you expect me to waste hours a day with my mind in a place of captivity, performing mundane tasks so that I might pretend to be myself? Besides leaving little time to enact my plans outside prison, what would happen if someone should try to rouse my imprisoned clone and find the clone impossible to wake? Furthermore, sudden death, even death in another body, is likely a dangerous affair. The shock alone could well be enough to cause heart failure, even death, and for obvious reasons I do not care to test the theory on myself."

Opal gestured to the clone in front of them then. "This is only a prototype, obviously, the first one made while it was still in the test stages and needed a bit more tweaking to assure the clone would respond perfectly to what I am. My true masterpiece has already taken my place in the ship outside Atlantis that has acted as a temporary prison, no more aware of what has happened or of the fact that she is not me than the LEP. I need not tell her what to do, and could not even if I wished to. Not directly, in any case."

"So, let me get this straight," said Spiro, in a voice of forced calm, masking the fact that his reserve of forbearance was suddenly feeling overdrawn again. "You switched with your clone, so it's in prison instead of you. But no one suspects it's a clone because it acts just like you, which it does because it's hooked up to your brain. But you aren't actually controlling it."

Spiro expected the girl to go off on another 'you're-not-getting-it-again-moron' rant, but she only smiled, looking pleased. "Precisely," she said. "Only, you should say, not controlling it _consciously_."

Opal lifted her arm as though checking the time, giving the computer on her wrist her attention. Putting her V-goggles back on, she began typing something into the invisible keyboard.

As she worked, she said, "To be precise, it is my subconscious knowledge of what I would do in a particular situation that controls my clone. It was a simple matter to arrange really—Foaly has already developed technology to manipulate the subconscious in the form of mind-wiping, to fool the mind into believing it has not witnessed what it knows it has seen. All I needed to do was modify the principle a little."

Opal's hand hesitated a moment in midair, and she seemed to be studying something only she could see. She continued, "When I define the criteria for my subconscious to respond to, and enter that criteria into this machine, the clone will awaken as me, but altered to certain specifications. It will also be completely independent of my will. For instance, when I awakened the clone that is now in prison, we—that is to say, my past self and I—specified she would not know that the real Opal Koboi had already escaped, or even be aware of what my plans for escape were, lest she be inclined to try the same thing I did or inadvertently give something of it away to the LEP. She possesses and can draw upon any one of my memories, excepting the new memories I have that came after her activation. It would have been too distracting for the clone after all, constantly receiving new information from a second point of view, and it would hardly facilitate the clone's ability to behave naturally."

Opal stepped back from her clone and the metal arms shifted slightly, placing the body's feet more firmly on the ground.

"But in any case, why should I explain all this when I can simply show you?" she said.

The metal arms suddenly released the limbs and torso, drawing back away from the lifeless creature. Spiro almost expected the clone to topple to the floor, but it was able to stand in place on its own. The thing's balance was, however, clearly precarious, and the metal arms continued to hover nearby.

Opal resumed typing on her invisible keyboard. "For instance," she said, "I'll enter some parameters into the computer right now. First I'll specify that the creature is not aware it _is_ a clone, because that basic knowledge would greatly affect how it would act, and therefore its behavior would not be at all accurate in relation to mine. Then we will add something else. Perhaps something utterly preposterous would be the most interesting. Hmm, now, what should it be...?"

Her face lit up after a moment of thought and her fingers flew over her computer.

"What would happen if Opal Koboi actually _liked_ Artemis Fowl and his subordinates?" she said brightly.

"Now, that _is_ preposterous," muttered Spiro as Opal finished inputting the prompt. "If you're anything like me."

"Now," said the girl, "my subconscious will automatically respond to those suggestions as they are transmitted to the device in my brain. It will fill in and rearrange what it knows to fit with the new beliefs I have given it, and that information that will be received by my clone, through the device grafted to its brain. That information will then control its behavior."

It was all Spiro could do to keep from taking a step back when the doll-like clone suddenly blinked, its vacant eyes coming to life like a computer booting up. The thing's gaze flickered to Jon Spiro once before settling on Opal. The chocolate-colored eyes narrowed.

"What's it doing?" Spiro asked in a low voice, eying the clone warily.

The duplicate's gaze snapped back to Spiro. "Are you referring to me as an _it_, you insubordinate Mud Man?"

"Insubordinate?" said Spiro suspiciously. He didn't like the assumption that went along with that word, namely, that he worked for her. But by the time he had spoken, the clone's attention had already shifted back to Opal.

"What is this place?" the clone demanded. "Who are you, impostor?" She somehow managed to sound commanding, as though she were the one in charge here, despite probably having no idea what was going on or where she was.

Spiro glanced at the real Opal, frowning to hide a slight apprehension. He got the point, the clone could act just like Opal. Maybe they'd better turn this freak of nature off now, before things had a chance to get out of hand.

But without missing a beat, Opal replied, "We are your humble servants, Mistress Koboi. We have so been looking forward to meeting you. Unfortunately, there was an accident with some of the security measures when you first arrived and you were partially mind-wiped, but no harm was done to your immense intellect." She added seriously, "And I am not an impostor. I simply had surgery done so that I could look just like you, Mistress. You_ are_ so very beautiful, it is what everyone wants these days."

Spiro looked at pixie incredulously, not believing for one second that even a brainless clone controlled by someone's subconscious could buy such a ludicrous explanation.

Except it seemed the clone found this perfectly reasonable, and was already long past concerns about suddenly waking up in the middle of strange place and not knowing how she'd gotten there. She answered, "I see. I wasn't aware that that particular idea of mine had been put into effect yet. I see the job your surgeon did was...passable."

Opal's smile flickered for a moment, but soon resumed itself. Apparently she was capable of a lot of things when it came to herself, including weathering insult. "Thank you, Mistress. I am flattered. I have been a great admirer of you and your work for a long time now..."

During this conversation, Spiro went from slightly weirded out to nearly hyperventilating, on the verge of a breakdown. He'd suspected it all along, of course, but there was something different about being confronted with direct evidence. This girl was a complete, certifiable wacko. _This_ was the person directing him how to spend his money?

"I suppose I may be willing to take you on as one of my loyal slaves," said the clone once the real Opal was finished, speaking as though she were granting her creator the most generous gift anyone could imagine. "So long as you continue to prove your undying devotion, and swear to me your eternal servitude. I suspect you will not be very useful, but I am sure I can find something."

Opal's smile was strangely fixed now. "Of course, Mistress," she said, no longer sounding so enthusiastic about the conversation. However, her interest appeared to revive as she asked, her tone a mix of fascination and detachment worthy of a scientist questioning a test subject, "Mistress, if I may ask, what ought to be done with Artemis Fowl and his associates?"

"_Fowl!_" hissed the clone with contempt. Then her eyes seemed to cloud over and her eye twitched, her head flinching to one side. A moment later her eyes cleared and she smiled, apparently unaware of her lapse.

"Oh yes, Fowl. That human could be of great use to me. Those who work for him as well. Since that incident with that criminal relative of Commander Root, who recently escaped the penitentiary, I have been able to do some research on blood runes. Imagine what I would gain if I had Fowl's intelligence in addition to my own, as well as his knowledge of the human world of crime. And if I were to also have his servant Butler's combat ability, Captain Holly Short's training and experience from her time with the LEP, that dwarf's thieving talents..."

The real Opal giggled. "You mean you don't want to kill them?"

"Simpleton," said the clone. "Why would I want to kill that which could be of such great use to me?"

The look of amusement on the fairy's face froze, and for the first time that day, Spiro felt like he might actually be enjoying himself.

"Okay," said Opal abruptly, fingers flickering over the wrist computer. "I think that will do as a demonstration for now."

"What are you—" began the clone suspiciously, but then she stopped. Her eyes dulled, and her face slackened once more.

"Bit full of herself, isn't she?" Spiro commented, smirking.

"She's as near to perfect as one who is not me can be," Opal explained, with her usual air of someone being forced to degrade themselves by stating the obvious. "False modesty would be unseemly."

She tapped a few more invisible keys and the mechanical arms came forward again, securing the clone once more as it swayed on the spot. The arms lifted it up off the floor and deposited it back up on the platform, its slender legs folding beneath its body. The clear material of the tube slid back up into place and the arms retracted back into the base before it began to refill with liquid.

"As I said, this is a just a prototype. It's a bit faulty, as you saw. The main problem is that the receiver inside the clone is not properly connected to the transmitter in my own mind. The transmitter sends my subconscious thoughts to the clone, but that information must be organized properly to be effective."

Spiro concentrated on not looking as though all the jargon was flying right over his head.

Opal continued, not taking any notice. "That is, there is a slight delay in the transfer of parts of information, so the true personality often tries to reassert itself when the subconscious suggestion causes it to think or do something too contrary to itself. If my clone was always twitching and freezing up at odd moments, that would be highly suspicious, so of course the receiver implanted in the second clone was adjusted accordingly, and the new clone can act as a perfect replica of myself. Do you see now?"

Spiro waited for her to go on. However, she was looking at her clone again and seemed to be distracted, almost entranced, so finally he prodded, "Yeah, I get it. And?"

Opal raised her eyebrows slightly. "And that is what I did. Do you want me to go into more details about the extensive calculations involved in doing anything at all with neurology? I was under the impression you wouldn't be able to follow that, human."

"No thanks," said Spiro, scowling. "Okay, it's impressive, I guess. Except, why are you telling me all this anyway? This was all part of the amazing plan to get you out of prison, great. But _please_ tell me, what good is any of this outside that?" He was disappointed. He had been expecting that at the end of this long-winded explanation, he would at least be getting another useful piece of futuristic tech ripped right out a sci-fi novel that he could either sell or use to pull one over on his competition. But he couldn't see much practical use in having a clone that could be hooked up to your brain.

But he thought again and, eying the clone speculatively, he said before Opal could reply, "Wait, so this thing doesn't act based on your will, but it acts just like you would." Again the spark of insatiable greed flared to life in his eyes. "So in other words, you could make up one of these things for me. I could go off on a long vacation somewhere safe while a clone takes care of things for me here. And just think of all the other benefits. If I had one of these and had it hooked up to me, then..."

"It would probably drool and make caveman noises," said Opal dismissively. "Even if you are not controlling both bodies simultaneously with the conscious mind, the subconscious is still required to be capable of both simulating an entire situation and generating a proper response based on the original's true memories and personality, while incorporating the current parameters entered to modify the personality accordingly. And I doubt you could do that while you were wide awake, human, let alone with your subconscious."

The middle part of this speech was lost on Spiro, but he got the intended insult well enough.

"Are you saying I'm not smart enough, fairy?" he demanded.

"What is that unsophisticated term Mud Men here in America use...?" said Opal, studying her reflection in the metal of her wrist computer. "Oh yes." She glanced up at Spiro, the universal expression of infinite superiority plastered across her face. "_Duh._"

Spiro forced a smile, but his lips were tight as though he'd just eaten something sour. Or perhaps sweet, in Spiro's case, since he never could stomach sugar. This had better be worth it.

"So," he said, his remaining patience hanging by a thread, "then do you mind telling me exactly what it takes to be able to subconsciously control a clone? _Exactly_?"

The green light emanating from the sickly, malignant substance churning in the tube was, for a moment, reflected in Opal's dark eyes as she looked straight at Spiro. Her small, blood red lips turned up in a chilling smile.

"Why, it takes a genius, of course."

* * *

Holly's eyes fell on the author's note on one of the first pages of the book and she only had to take in the first couple of lines before her eyes were rolling toward the ceiling in exasperation. She had little doubt that, by the end of this, she would be the kind of sick that could only be the result of excessive sentimentality.

However, as her gaze flickered over the page, the words at the end caught her attention. She felt a kind of queasiness in her stomach, a flash of foreboding, and she found herself suddenly hoping that the book was no more than what it appeared at first glance. A dopey, sentimental adventure_-_romance, the kind one read to children before bed.

_Fair Reader,_ it began, _you are now about to embark upon a great journey. Soon you will __witness the__ story of a __great and noble soul__, who traveled bravely throughout his land __and __defended with all his mighty strength the weak and oppressed. You shall see a magnificent hero, an honorable knight of justice who fought valiantly to thwart the evil that would bring darkness to the __great __land he loved. __This is a__ wondrous tale of good and evil__, love and hatred, joy and sorrow, forgiveness and regret, sacrifice and vengeance__. But a word of caution, O Courageous Adventurer. For this is also a tale of inexpressible tragedy..._

* * *

Spiro glared, and resisted the urge to reach up and start pulling out hair or make strangling gestures. "Fine," he muttered. Then, after he'd managed to get his aggravation in check, he said aloud, "Anyway, you haven't told me about your plans for Fowl. I thought we were going to be showing that brat the meaning of the word _retribution_. Where does he fit into your big plan for—for conquering the world or whatever?" Spiro had trouble getting that last part out. He thought it all the time, of course, but saying it out loud, it just sounded pathetic. _Conquering the world—_only some cheap, cliché villain straight out of a Marvel comic would put it like that.

Opal smiled maliciously, and her eyes grew unfocused as her thoughts ranged to her magnificent plot. "While we use whatever means necessary to gain a number of strategic advantages and build up our weapons and power in order to overcome the LEP...Artemis Fowl will take all the blame."

Spiro was slightly less impressed with this than he had been with the constant ego-tripping he had been forced to endure over the past week. Had he been aware of the remarkable similarity this scheme bore to Opal's last two ventures, he might have been even less inclined to award it a blue ribbon for originality.

"You're going to frame Artemis Fowl," said Spiro. "Oh great. That's brilliant."

"I know," sighed Opal dreamily, her newfound ability to detect sarcasm hit-and-miss as always. "Not only will he suffer tremendously under the suspicion and, inevitably, _despise_ of the entire fairy world for actions he did not commit, but the LEP's belief that Fowl has turned against them will prevent them from following his suggestions, or granting him any resources he might have used to undermine my plans. Not even the great _Artemis Fowl_ can do anything without support of any kind. And the LEP will be so absorbed with attempting to stop Fowl that, at least to begin with, we will be able to act with relative impunity in their distraction."

Spiro gaped at her. Of course, this all made perfect sense, both logically and strategically. But practically speaking, some plans sounded better in the theoretical stages than they would work in real life.

"But even if you do frame him, he won't be cut off from _all _resources," Spiro pointed out. "For one, my sources have been saying that that bodyguard of his is still alive." Spiro frowned. He would have planned to pay Arno Blunt back for that screwup, but his ex-bodyguard was already on his list for abandoning him at Phonetix. Not to mention the coward was currently safe in a jail cell somewhere.

Spiro shook it off and continued, "From what I've heard, his man Butler is the best in the business. The man's been absolutely everywhere, so he's got a network with dozens of people around the world that could offer him plenty of help if he asked. He and Fowl could effectively have a formidable force built up from almost nothing in no time at all, a whole group of trained soldiers, mobsters, police officers, secret service men and the like. And that's not even taking into account their fairy buddies you told me about."

Opal smiled, bow lips tight with suppressed pleasure. "As I said...cut off from _any_ resources. Even those which would seem to be Artemis Fowl's own arms and legs. My revenge won't be completely satisfying unless he is left completely crushed and utterly alone, with no hope of victory."

"Butler isn't so easy to kill," noted Spiro.

Opal looked at him, the self-satisfaction in her face only too plain. "Is death the only way to separation?" she said cryptically.

Spiro snorted. He wasn't having any of it. "For a Butler and a Fowl, yeah."

Opal tutted and shook her head, still smiling. "You are correct to be wary of Fowl's bodyguard. For a Mud Man, he is most impressive. He has a force of will so strong that he was able to resist my mind control once—a feat quite unheard of, I assure you."

"Mind control," muttered Spiro. He didn't like the sound of that. But surely that was a bluff, or else she would have simply taken over _his_ mind to get at his resources. And if he was remembering right, she had implied earlier that she no longer had strong magic...

Deciding to ignore the bit about mind control for now, he said insistently, "That's exactly what I said. If you're somehow implying that you're going to trick _everyone_ into thinking Fowl's done some unspeakable crime, you're crazy. I barely knew Fowl, and even _I_ knew he didn't have the nerve to do much more than play kids' games to make money. And if those fairy friends of his know you as well as they have to, considering how many dealings you say you all have had, you'll still be their first suspect, no matter how unlikely it seems. They might not...no, _definitely_ won't be fooled. And Butler—Butler is _loyal to Fowl_, don't you get that?"

Spiro began to feel sweat beading on the back of his neck. He had partnered with someone who didn't have the slightest clue. What a fool he had been.

Unable to stop himself, he went on, "If there's even a single loophole, a single way to beat you, Fowl will find it. And if he has someone like Butler on his side, there's bound to be a little more than one small hole. Butler will follow Fowl to the ends of the earth, and even if you could somehow make Butler doubt, that kid would still convince him of the truth, even if he had to _lie_ to do it. And the same probably goes for all of his other associates. We might as well just kill Fowl if we get the chance and move on from there, rather than take any elaborate, roundabout measures that could all fall apart at the slightest misstep."

Surprisingly, Opal made no reaction to Spiro's little tirade. She only continued to smile, expression almost bland.

Opal checked her nails as she waited for him to finish, and when he did, she allowed him a moment to catch his breath. Then, apparently in too good a mood to get offended, she observed, "If killing Fowl right away would further my goals, I would do it immediately, of course. But if the LEP discover my involvement too soon, all my plans may end up in jeopardy. For one, with the technological expertise and tactical complexity behind my schemes, they will realize it must be someone highly intelligent—either Fowl or myself in all likelihood—behind it.

"But in any case, you are incorrect about the precariousness of my proving to the world the horrendous actions Fowl has taken—will _continue _to take. It is already in motion. Even the great Butler has a chink in that armor of loyalty you rave about, something that could make him abandon the one he swore to guard and serve: as do all of Artemis Fowl's allies. All have doubts that can be exploited."

Opal's eyelids drooped over her dark irises, as though she were in a trance. She spoke her next words in a murmur that rode on a breath, like a prayer. "Just watch, Jon Spiro, and I will soon show you there is no one in this world who completely trusts Artemis Fowl."

Spiro was still utterly unconvinced. "You can't expect me to believe _you_ know for sure what buttons of theirs to press and how to press them. For all you know, the bodyguard might not believe it if Fowl himself pulled out a gun and _told_ the man he was betraying him. He'd probably still think it was a trick with plastic surgery, or that Fowl wasn't in control of himself, or that he'd been coerced. The whole idea might work for fooling the public in general. Maybe. But anymore than that is impossible, _impossible_. Your plan won't ever go through. Not entirely."

"Odd as it is," she said, closing her eyes, "you are correct, in a way. I don't know the weaknesses in Fowl's relationships with his friends. I could make plenty of excellent informed hypotheses, but they would not be precise enough to be effective."

And yet, Opal was still smiling. She opened her chocolate-brown eyes and stared at him, tilting her head slightly to the side, as though expecting Spiro to say something. She said suddenly, "You realize, you haven't yet asked me _how_ I intend to effect this grand scheme of mine."

Spiro gave the fairy-human a long, hard look, as though his stare alone could force her to absorb a shred of common sense. But he relented after a moment and asked, like he knew she wanted him to, "Okay then. Tell me."

Opal's eyes glinted and she tapped the glass tube with one painted nail. "I thought by now it would be obvious."

Spiro opened his mouth to tell her to stop playing games already, but just then a new voice spoke up behind him. Spiro's stomach sank as soon as he heard the cultured tones. He knew that voice, a voice which was forever burned into his memory.

"Come now, Mr. Spiro. We know you are more clever than that. You should know by now never to use the word _impossible_ in the presence of a genius."

Spiro turned slowly, only to see the delivery boy standing not ten feet away from him. The teen's cap had been straightened, but his head still tilted forward so that the bill shielded his eyes from view. The only visible portion of his pale face was a pair of thin lips, stretched in a wide smirk.

Spiro could feel Opal's smug expression pounding against the back of his head, but for once he didn't care. For a moment, he was simply too stunned either to continue in his skepticism or to be in admiration of the brilliance as it all clicked into place.

The delivery boy walked past him, each step unhurried and deliberate. When Spiro turned back around, he saw Opal had lifted one hand, fingers angled down in a decidedly queenly gesture. The taller boy bent, taking the hand and kissing it lightly, before taking up a stance at Opal's right side, mouth still curled.

"Everything is under control," said Opal, voice almost gentle in the near perfect bliss of her own achievement.

Standing side by side like that, Spiro was struck by how much the pair looked like siblings, matching hair as black as night, nearly identical expressions of arrogance and cruelty etched on their young faces.

The delivery boy lifted the brim of his cap, and for the first time Spiro stared into his eyes, strangely colored eyes that didn't match, one blue, one hazel.

"Believe me, Mr. Spiro, Jon," said the teenager. "Watch us spin a web of lies so thick that it will be impossible to ever unravel the truth again, until we completely cut off any possibility of _his_ finding rescue, of his being accepted or trusted. After all, absolutely no one can help but suspect a criminal, a liar, and a manipulator of committing crimes, lying, and manipulating." His smile broadened ever so slightly as he added, "And of course, no one is more aware of that simple fact than Artemis Fowl."

* * *

A/N: Hey! We finally got to the introduction to the actual plot. (It took 30,000 words, but we did get there.) Originally I'd meant to work this idea into the summary, so it would be clear from the start, but in the end I decided to leave it more on the vague side, and let things just reveal themselves within the story itself. c:

On a random note (warning! spoilers for _The Last Guardian_), I guess technology had really shot ahead between _The Opal Deception_ and TLG. Opal's clone (which was probably between two and three feet tall) took two years to grow, and Artemis's only took six months. :0 (And I thought Foaly was using a chrysalis of Opal's which she had created prior to when she went to the future in TTP, which would be eight years+ into the past. Maybe Foaly had created better agents for speeding growth? Or maybe I'm remembering everything all wrong, that happens sometimes when I don't bother to look things up. X3) I just decided to stick with what we knew from _The Opal Deception_.

Anyway, thank you so much for your wonderful comments last chapter, and don't forget to review! :J

(Oh, by the way, I know all that information with Spiro and Opal is hard to keep track of, so if something confused you or if you have a question, don't feel like you have to hunt through the whole thing looking to see if the question's already been answered. I would be happy to answer it, either ferreting out the relevant passage or, if it was an oversight on my part, just telling you so. Yeah, I'm not going to be snippy, because even I can't keep all the details I've tried to add to make this all as consistent as I can. Sometimes I've been reading over this to edit it, after already reading over it so many times I'm almost sick of it, and I'll come across a passage and think, 'wait, that doesn't make sense,' and add something to explain it, and realize I'd already answered it somewhere else a different way. XD) But anyway, I'm digressing. The point is, please review! C:

(edit: Yeah, it looks like I was so busy rambling as usual, I forgot to mention, a huge thank you goes to levina for helping to prepare this. I think I'd written that when I wrote this author's note originally, but then I cut out a lot like I usually do, this time apparently without looking closely enough...Well, now you all know the spaciness people who know me have to deal with. So that's a double thank you that goes to levina, editing this chapter, and putting up with my daydreamy personality. (; )

Posted 11/8/12


	6. The Ideal Partner

A/N: Hey! I'm back. :J (This chapter needed so much work it's not even funny. I think it contained practically everything which I have hardest time writing, except for clever _Mission Impossible_-type breaking into/out of secure facilities scenes. Those will come later. Yeah, somebody kill me now...)

Haha, I spent about forever writing and rewriting a really long author's note here at the beginning of this chapter (since this chapter and this part of the story take perhaps an unexpected turn), but in the end I wasn't sure if the explanation wasn't worse than nothing, so I cut most of it out.

I think the main gist of it is...for anyone here who has read or is reading _The Other Paradox _(another AF fanfiction I wrote, which is about TTP), you probably know how slow I like to go with things. I think I've said this already, but again, this storyline's going to take quite a while to develop, mainly because this is the kind of plot that requires a lot of set up beforehand for it to make sense, and sometimes it's hard to find ways to add in all the relevant details in a natural-feeling way. (Not just with understanding Opal's plans, but with getting a feel for the characters' various relationships too.)

This section of the story, this chapter and the next several chapters, are going to focus more on Artemis's Atlantis Complex, and also on the characters' "everyday" lives (that is, _everyday_ in the sense that it's the kind of stuff that typically happens in between the actual AF books, where there are no guns blazing or characters being forced to jump onto moving trains, etc.), or at least on aspects of their everyday lives that will somehow contribute to the overall plot. I guess you might say that, instead of being under physical threat, for the time being the characters are mainly just going to be under psychological or emotional threat.

Well, that's my super-ultra-condensed version of what I was going to say. XD Long story short, this section of the story might seem to go kind of slow (as with most of my writing), but I promise it's because it's all part of an overarching plan. :j (...Maybe I didn't need to say that, but sometimes I look for reassurance of that in author's notes when the story seems to go in an odd direction. But maybe this just makes it seem like I'm way too self-conscious about my writing? XD)

Anyway, hope you enjoy reading this chapter almost as much as I enjoyed working on it, and see you at the end! :3

* * *

Chapter 5: The Ideal Partner

The Golden Acorn Hotel was unequivocally considered the classiest, most luxurious hotel in all of Haven city. Its enormous main lobby was enclosed by clear glass walls, and lush, exotic rugs trimmed with golden thread were carefully arranged to give the room an atmosphere of tasteful sophistication. At the lobby's center a magnificent crystal chandelier hung by a gold chain, dangling nearly two fairy-stories above the heads of handsome sprite valets and the successful business tycoons, big-name pop idols, politicians, and other VIPs relaxing in the lounge area.

However, the Acorn's image of refined elegance, reserved only for Haven's wealthiest elite, had taken a bit of a beating in recent months, thanks to a couple of unusual guests.

Domovoi Butler strode down the corridor, hunching his shoulders as he went to keep his head clear of the ceiling. A pixie who had been starting down the passage froze where he was as he caught sight of the man-mountain's approach, then backtracked to take the long way around.

Butler didn't even spare him a glance. After spending the last few months walking around with a face set in what was almost a permanent scowl, he was used to it.

Butler was certainly not a happy bodyguard. Although Domovoi Butler was about as stoic as they came, even the youngest trainee to ever receive a blue diamond tattoo from Madame Ko had a few things that would drive him insane. Number one was, of course, Artemis placing himself in some kind of danger. Which seemed to happen at least once every other month, if not more. The second source of stress was less immediately pressing, but more taxing in the long-run: If there was one thing a bodyguard hated nearly as much as having his charge throwing himself into the midst of some tumultuous affair, it was being forced to leave the safety of his charge up to someone else.

Dr. Jerbal Argon of the Psych Brotherhood—an affiliation title that already made Butler highly suspicious of the gnome's qualifications— had been most adamant that he could not properly treat a patient with the distraction of the constant presence of friends or family members. Naturally, Butler wasn't the type to let himself be pushed around by beings less than half his size, and at first he had no intention of paying the gnome the slightest bit of mind, no matter how many times he was threatened with a call to the LEP or a restraining order. Only he had been stunned when Artemis himself had uncharacteristically sided with Dr. Argon.

As Butler passed a wall-mounted, gold-encrusted candelabra in the shape of a mythical elfin hero from the the fifteenth century, he had to resist the urge to reach over and snap off the head as he mentally recalled that conversation from when they had first arrived at the clinic. That conversation he had played over in his mind a thousand times.

"Perhaps it is preferable this way, old friend."

As the two of them had stood just inside the doorway of the room that had once played host to Opal Koboi, having heard Dr. Argon's professional opinion not five minutes before, that was how Artemis had begun.

As the teenager had spoken, he had not been looking at Butler, instead preferring to casually survey his new quarters, with an air one might have used in looking over the lodgings for a short stay at a tropical resort. He had moved to set up his laptop on the bed and had it hooked it up to a power source near the nightstand before continuing lightly, "In fact, I have already put some thought into this matter. After Opal's previous escape several years ago, the doctor's reforms and improvements to the security system have been extensive, as we have both seen; I will likely be as safe here as I would be anywhere. Therefore, there is little need for you to cage yourself in this place along with me for the entire duration of our stay."

Butler had already been opening his mouth to object when Artemis had went on, "Besides, there is another consideration."

Butler had watched as the young master seated himself on the bed in front of the laptop and switched it on then, fingers rapidly tapping over the keys, eyes on the screen. The teenager's face had been perfectly placid as, in that usual even, reasonable tone, he said,"You must understand, old friend. I foresee that the process of recovering from this mental disease will require a willingness to suppress all feelings of pride, and any other feelings that may hamper my swift recovery. I must tolerate the sense of a kind of reduced status, and accept that, for a time, I am no longer a genius, nor Artemis Fowl the Second, but merely a mental patient who must stoop to discussing personal matters with a licensed professional in psychology, despite the fact that that individual likely knows less about the subject than I do."

He had paused briefly then, for the first time his eyes moving up to meet Butler's. His gaze was steady, but Butler thought he saw something there in those mismatched eyes. A slight shift of emotion. But as always Artemis refused to show it openly, and he simply went on in that tone of control, that utter assurance that he knew just what to do.

"Do you see, my friend? I know that to have any hope of freeing myself from this disease, I must have assistance of some kind, no matter how humiliating. So I must now willingly suffer indignities. However, odd as it may seem, such a thing is often easier to endure with strangers than with friends."

He had smiled wryly then and, his tone gently humorous, said, "I am afraid it is a common psychological response: among friends and acquaintances, patterns of interaction have already been established, and attempting to alter those patterns to accommodate one's being in a rather demeaning position is likely to do more harm than good. By contrast, among relative strangers, such as Dr. Argon and his assistants, new patterns of interaction may be created with relatively little inconvenience or discomfort. Therefore, considering that, I ask you to please do me this favor and allow me to make my recovery primarily on my own, difficult as you may find it, my friend. I believe that is the only way that I may hope to regain myself."

Butler had still wanted to argue. He had wanted to say that, 'patterns of interaction' or whatever else aside, Artemis needed people around him to help him, people who _knew_ him, who _cared_ about him. He would learn with time not to let it bother him as much he predicted it would.

However, in the end Butler had said nothing, and quietly consented to Artemis's suggestion that he and Juliet take up residence in this hotel. Because he had known only too well that it was true there was nothing he could do to be of help in this kind of situation and, after years of working for the young Fowl heir, he could not simply cast aside his deeply ingrained conviction that the prodigy Artemis Fowl the Second almost always knew what was best.

Butler breathed deeply and evenly as he walked, briefly forcing his mind away from useless contemplation. Strangely, he found himself automatically pausing by an elevator door, and even more strange, he realized he was momentarily tempted to take it down. Even though after months of staying in this cramped building he was used to how the other guests and staff reacted to him, having every being who came within sight of him spinning around and running the other way still got aggravating once in a while.

Or perhaps, in thinking so much about Artemis and his complex, he found there was just something about the idea of climbing inside a box with an interior cut off from everything outside—as though, if he locked himself in there so he couldn't see the world, for just a moment Butler would be granted a temporary reprieve from worrying about all the colossal, unsolvable problems of the world beyond the walls of the box—Artemis's complex, the dangers from old enemies, everything. Isolated, and therefore safe.

_Just like Artemis._

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Butler shook his head. Even the simple passing idea was far too pointlessly philosophical to be worth spending even a few seconds on. Besides, Artemis wasn't staying at the clinic by himself because he was trying to hide away, or give himself the illusion of safety. Artemis was forcing himself to stay there only because he was trying to get better.

Butler turned sharply on his heel and took off in the direction of the stairwell instead. As any bodyguard knew, it was unwise to take an elevator if it could be avoided: if a situation arose, the enclosed, boxlike space was a deathtrap waiting to happen. Artemis knew that, too.

However, despite Butler's years of training, his mind was proving most undisciplined, as once again his thoughts returned to being preoccupied with things other than his surroundings and the number of potential dangers lurking around every corner.

Throughout these long months, Butler had often taken comfort in the fact that he still saw Artemis often enough. In fact, Butler saw his charge almost every single day. He would go into that white-washed room and sit in a chair next to the bed for a few hours at a time. Sometimes they would talk about one project or concern back at Fowl Manor or another, while other times Butler would just sit and read, letting Artemis work on his laptop in silence. For the first few weeks, during those visits Artemis had often had fits of paranoia, or would shift over into his other personality, but it had been a long time now since Artemis had lost control that way. In fact, lately Artemis seemed to be entirely his old self, to the point where he never even seemed cross or moody, as he had often been in the early days. Artemis spoke of the illness lightly, almost with disdain, as though he was already close to beating it.

However, those few hours each day were far from enough to reassure Butler that he really had a good idea as to what Artemis's actual mental state was. He had known Artemis Fowl a little too long to simply take what he saw at face value: no one knew better than Butler that there was no one more gifted in the art of deception than Artemis Fowl.

Butler had not been allowed to see any of the files Dr. Argon had collected on Artemis—some cock about patient privacy, and Artemis wasn't sharing either—but he gathered enough from the doctor's vague updates and hints to see that Artemis's recovery wasn't going quite so well as Artemis seemed to want them all to believe.

Even if Artemis seemed well enough, and even though there was always the chance that Argon was playing it up in order to keep Artemis around for the publicity it brought to his clinic, it didn't change the fact that things might be much more serious than anyone could guess. While he saw Artemis often, Butler couldn't help but notice that the times Artemis specified Butler see him at the clinic were almost always around mid-morning. No one else might have found that strange, but Butler had been a soldier long enough to know that, if Artemis was indeed still regularly tormented deep in his thoughts and trying to conceal it, it would not be during the calm, peaceable hours of the morning that he would be most likely to suffer from some attack. Even in a windowless room, the morning almost always could bring hope and new strength—just enough to last him through to another night of misery and nightmares.

If Artemis had been about to get shot up by a thug with a machine gun or fall off a cliff, or in some other physical danger, Butler could forcibly intervene to protect the teenager from harm, whether that protection was welcome or not. This was different. In this kind of battle, he could not force upon Artemis any help when it was not wanted.

Consequently, in the meantime Butler just had to do what he did best: act as silent support.

Butler went a ways farther down the hall, then came to a stop outside a pair of grand double doors, so large by fairy standards Butler only had to duck his head a couple inches to get through.

Butler had been down this way many times during his stay in Haven. This was where The Golden Acorn kept its first-class gym, with all its new equipment, fresh white towels, and drink dispensers providing a wide selection of name-brand energy drinks in addition to the usual ultra-purified water that all fairies preferred. Most of the exercise machines were too small for him, but a few could bear his weight and he could also use the mats too. Butler had always found a good workout an excellent means to relieve stress, and it had saved him more than one afternoon of dwelling on things he couldn't do anything about.

However, today he wasn't here to drown out the sound of his thoughts by running on two treadmills at once set on the same speed, or go after a punching bag like it was responsible for Artemis's Atlantis Complex. Butler could hear muffled shouts of laughter and cheering from inside the gym, and he mentally grimaced. If Madame Ko could see her top female student now, she would not be at all pleased.

With one last sigh to himself, he pushed open the doors.

Inside, Butler was not surprised when his eyes fell on a collection of blue exercise mats near the back of the room, where a group of fairies had congregated. All eyes were riveted to the precise center of the mats, where a blond Mud Girl dressed in a glittering, outrageously bright emerald leotard was striking a dramatic wrestling pose over a muscular-looking gnome lying prostrate on the floor.

"Did you all get that?" she asked the crowd. "Remember, the secret is to get in there and get a hold of the head right off. The head! Once you've got that, then the follow-through's a piece of cake, as long as you just go for it and don't stop to think about the weather."

If members of the Butler family were in the habit of displaying embarrassment on their stoic faces, Butler might have been inclined to do so just then. The most important thing as a bodyguard was to be inconspicuous, to be able to walk through a crowd of people next to a Principle and never be looked at twice. And if there was one term to be applied to a human girl who had not been able to take one shuttle ride to Haven City without getting into a very public, ill-advised fight with a jumbo pixie, and as a direct result was now standing in the middle of a gym of the most well-known five-star hotel in the city, giving a taste of human wrestling to a crowd of adoring fans, it was certainly not 'inconspicuous.'

Butler found himself scanning the room automatically, looking for threats, but of course there was nothing. The majority of the crowd was composed of children and adolescents from the families of either the hotel staff or patrons. If an ordinary fairy could be considered small, many a fairy child here was so tiny he could have almost passed for a toy in a human prize machine.

It had initially taken Butler completely by surprise to see how quickly the fairies took to his sister. He had thought that, when it came to humans, fairies only knew either how to turn and run away screaming, or else fire off a lot of empty bravado—much the way humans seemed to do in fairy tales when they were faced with some great monster, like a giant or a dragon. But among the fairy children here at the hotel, Juliet was practically a literal larger-than-life celebrity. Even the hotel staff, who had initially been appalled at the scene their non-fairy client was making in their classy establishment, were now putting video clips of Juliet in their television advertisements, apparently having discovered a good percentage of the wealthy fairy populace had a taste for the exotic and strange.

But of course, Butler supposed his main experiences with fairy reactions to humans were of those to himself and Artemis, and even humans were liable to cross to the other side of the street if they saw Artemis and Butler headed in their direction. Juliet, forever smiling and cheerful, was a different kind of human entirely.

As Butler looked out across the room, he was not surprised when he caught sight of the little imp Nº1 sitting right in front, clapping with especial enthusiasm. Guards flanked the little demon on either side, and Butler wouldn't be surprised if a third of the crowd surrounding Juliet was made up of Nº1's usual group of highly trained LEP combat guards that followed him wherever he went. From the looks on their faces, Butler could tell they still hadn't taken to the fact that the fairy they were assigned to protect, the most powerful demon warlock of the last century, got along so well with the bizarre, wrestling-obsessed Mud Girl.

"Amazing!" cried Nº1. Before anyone could stop him, he went on delightedly, "Skillful, awe-inspiring, adept, masterful—"

Juliet beamed and gave Nº1 a wink, before she offered the gnome lying flat on his back a hand. "Thanks for helping me with the demo, little man," she said. The gnome was indeed shorter than Juliet, though this somehow seemed an inappropriate nickname for someone so bulked up that he was probably twice as big around the middle as she was. "Hope that didn't take your ego down too much."

The gnome colored a little. However, from looking at him, Butler thought the fairy looked more sheepish than upset, and he almost seemed to be holding back a grin. The gnome rubbed his hip and said, "Right. I'm gettin' it now. But you coulda gone a _little_ easier on me, Mud Girl. Or given me a warning at least. You're a dangerous one."

"No one who talks about how my _spinning headlock elbow drop_ couldn't incapacitate an undersized pixie gets any mercy," said Juliet brightly. The crowd laughed and the gnome chuckled along with them. There was something about Juliet's playful personality that made it so no one ever felt as though she was laughing at them; in fact, instead the laughter seemed more to make the source of amusement a part of her select group.

"Okay," said Juliet, refocusing on the rest of the crowd. "Which one of you wimps will help me demonstrate my next move? No one?"

Nº1's stubby demon hand shot up into the air and he waved it around frantically. "I will, I will!"

Butler noticed Nº1's bodyguards had all tensed and, from their expressions, Butler got the impression that Nº1 could complain all he wanted and even threaten to make all the volcanoes nearest Atlantis erupt, but they would still draw the line at this. Butler definitely had experience in the area of uncooperative charges, so the guards had his deepest sympathy.

Fortunately for them, Juliet only laughed and said good-naturedly, "And get my brain fried by accident? No thank you, little man. Any other volunteers?"

Nº1 pouted. "That wouldn't happen. I've got superb control over my magic now."

"Oh really? That's interesting. Qwan, last I talked to him, had a bit of a different take on things." The group all laughed again, including Nº1, though he pretended to pout some more.

Butler decided now was as good a time as any to cut in, and he cleared his throat.

The room's occupants turned to look his way and the laughter abruptly petered out.

Nº1 was the one exception; he waved happily and mouthed, "Hi, Butler!"

Juliet wrapped a finger in her blond ponytail, letting the jade ring slap against her knuckles. "What's up, bro? I'm kind of in the middle of something here."

"Do you think you could wrap things up a little early?" Butler said, and his usual deep, serious voice likely finished off any levity that might have still remained in the room. "I need to talk to you."

"Now?" Juliet frowned. "But..."

"It's important."

Juliet, still not looking too happy, rolled her eyes and turned back to the group. "Sorry, looks like class is canceled. You'll have to wait to see my own special-version _rolling wheel kick_ tomorrow."

"You're not going to be here tomorrow," said Butler.

Juliet blinked. "I'm not?"

Butler was tempted to rub his brow, where he felt the beginnings of a headache blossom. "That's what we need to talk about."

"Oh."

"Are you going back to the surface again, Princess?" someone called out, sounding intensely disappointed.

Butler turned to glare at the source of this inquiry, a little elf probably half Nº1's size, which made the unfortunate fairy shrink back in terror. Butler looked back to Juliet and he heard the elf heave such a sigh of relief one would think he'd just gotten out of range of a volley of gunfire.

Again Butler was hit with the strangeness of how popular Juliet was here in Haven. But her little fan club would survive; after all, this wouldn't be Juliet's first return trip to the surface since Artemis had arrived in at the clinic several months ago.

Butler may have holed himself up in Haven City since Artemis's incarceration, but of course his sister would give up watching _WCW Power Hour_ tapes for good before she'd take that kind of confinement without driving everyone around her insane. But as it turned out, Juliet's periodic need to get aboveground had actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

As Artemis had often noted, it was probably only Juliet's face-to-face updates on how Artemis was doing that had kept the Fowls from doing something drastic out of worry and impatience. Even though Mrs. Fowl was aware of the fairy element in the situation, and had been allowed to visit Artemis once at the beginning, it was not an easy thing to persuade her to stay away from her son for months together when he was ill. But there was little to be done about it, as it had been difficult enough for Artemis to convince his father that, at the facility that he was residing in for treatment, there was to be no visitation from anyone besides Butler and Juliet. Angeline and her husband were normally inseparable these days, so for her to suddenly take off on her own on too many solo-excursions would be sure to raise the Fowl patriarch's suspicions.

In addition, Butler had long begun to sense that, though the fairies had been accommodating enough so far, their hosts would eventually reach a limit in their hospitality. It had clearly made Argon and any of the other fairies involved edgy to have Angeline, yet another human who knew the fairy secret, there at the clinic, and they had been similarly skittish when Minerva had been brought down a few months later. Butler had pulled strings for the both of them, but at the same time, he thought it would be risky for Artemis and his treatment to do anything that would strain the fairies' goodwill any farther. If Angeline had continued to press him for his assistance in helping her see Artemis, he would have been in a bind, but it seemed as though Juliet had been able to ease the woman's worries just enough that Angeline had been able to leave well enough alone. For that, Butler was immensely relieved. Angeline's wrath should anything happen to Artemis under his care was one of the few things Butler feared in this world.

"Seems like it," Juliet told the little elf, in response to his question about her leaving, and she shrugged. She looked around at all of them, then grinned suddenly. "Aww, do I need to get you babies a sub to play your babysitter for next time?"

"Sub," repeated Nº1. "Submarine? Sub sandwich? Sub-Saharan—"

Butler cleared his throat again, eyes still on his younger sister, who was being her typically uncooperative self.

Still grinning, she called, "Okay, see you all later, I'll tell you when I'm back in town." She paused, thinking. "Actually, no need. You'll _know_ when I'm back."

Butler had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. There was no doubt about it: his sister was born to be a wrestler.

"Substitute!" Nº1 exclaimed happily, getting it a little late.

As the group mulled around collecting their things, Juliet came right over to him, hands on hips. "This had better be good, Dom. You interrupted me right at the best part. Any reason why this couldn't just wait 'til this evening?"

"You make plans in the evening too," Butler pointed out. "This time I preferred _not_ to have to wade through a crowd of fairies snacking on h'orderves and sipping sim-wine, and get gawked at by every top fairy in the Haven business world. I don't know how you stand going to those events." As an afterthought, he added in a low voice, "And would you mind not calling me that?"

"What? Dom?" said Juliet, characteristically flippant. Her eyes twinkled at him behind her Jade Princess mask. "And did you say _gawked_? Wow, I think someone's a little moody today."

Butler sighed.

As they walked back to their shared hotel room, Juliet pulled off her mask and removed the jade ring from her ponytail, but then reconsidered and put the ring back in.

"So, you have a message for me to take to Fowl Manor?" she asked. "Why so urgent?"

"No, not a message. Not _urgent,_ either. I've been telling you about this for weeks." Butler gave his sister a look of vague disapproval as he opened the door to their room. "Artemis is going back to the surface to stay at Fowl Manor, and the date's been set for tomorrow."

Juliet's mouth fell open. "/_Tomorrow/_?" she exclaimed, confirming Butler's long-held suspicion that most everything he said to her went in one ear and out the other.

"Tomorrow," Butler confirmed.

Juliet ignored his tone. "Well, that's good, isn't it? It means Artemis is better now, right? You know, I did think he seemed more /_Artemis_/ these days."

Butler was silent. "No," he said quietly. "He's not cured." For a moment, he debated with himself on whether or not to tell Juliet of his suspicions concerning how well Artemis's appearance of steady improvement compared to what was actually going on in his head. However, he saw no reason to bog his sister down with his worries when she couldn't do anything more than he could. So instead he said, "But the doctor says he's been making steady progress, and being at home is supposed to help move him along."

"Well, that makes sense." As Juliet crossed the room and drew a bottle of juice out of the little refrigerator in the corner, she went on, "I always wondered how locking someone up in a hospital-slash-prison for insane people was supposed to be good for mental health."

Butler's lip twitched in a reluctant half-smile at that.

She gazed thoughtfully at the wall. "How long will he get to stay up there?"

"Depends. A few months at least. If there's any problems, he'll probably come back down here for more treatment. But if he's still doing fine, he might just stay at home permanently."

"That'd probably be best." She sighed. "But I guess that means I won't be coming back for awhile, then. I've got to go give Nº1 a proper goodbye. Maybe I'll stop by Mulch's detective agency too." She tilted back her head and took a long swig of her drink, then said, "I'll be going back to being a full time maid again then, won't I? We'll have to do a little sparring in the dojo from time to time to keep things lively."

Juliet went back to sit next to him. He'd settled on the edge of his bed, facing away from the lamplight, as though not trusting the shadows on the far side of the room and wanting to keep an eye on them. Juliet smiled up at him, but Butler's expression was somber.

"About that, Juliet," he said slowly. "What happened to the Spanish wrestling troupe? You have to miss it."

Juliet could not hide her surprise at the question. She shrugged. "I wouldn't mind seeing Samsonetta and the others again," she said. "We've been keeping in contact, and they won't stop begging me to come back." She laughed. "Well, I've got to admit, I loved getting to try out my moves and being paid for it. I say there can't be anything closer to heaven than being in a wrestling ring and getting to pummel a bunch of beefed up guys with an overdeveloped macho, drive-for-male-dominance problem." Her eyes got a dreamy, faraway look. "You never have to sit around staring at the wall and trying to look disciplined, like with Madame Ko, that's for sure."

However, her eyes sharpened, and for the first time she looked almost hesitant. "It's just...I don't know, brother. As stupid as this might sound, the last time I was in Mexico I got this sense like...like maybe I didn't really want to be performing like that forever. For a bloodthirsty audience like that, I mean. It's weird, because before I always thought that the audience was one of the best parts. The crazy looks on their faces made me want to laugh. But..."

Her expression was pensive now and, for once, Juliet looked almost as earnest as her brother as she tried to work out her thoughts. "I guess what it comes down to," she began, "is when I got all my fairy memories back—what we did at the Spiro Needle, and Holly and Mulch and all the other fairies—it felt like all my priorities got switched around. Or I remembered old priorities, or something."

She hesitated again, uncertain. "I'm not sure what it is, exactly. Since I got back my memories...I don't know, it's weird, like I suddenly changed into a different person, just a little bit. Like, all of a sudden, for new-Juliet it's not enough just to show off on stage in phony battles, like it was for old-Juliet. Even what I've been doing here at the hotel—back when I was training with Madame Ko I might have killed for the opportunity to do something this much fun, but now new-Juliet really wants to do more. I want to use all my moves to do something real, Dom, to help people. Like how I was with the whole Jon Spiro thing."

Butler was still looking grave, a slight frown forming on his brow as he gazed at his sister. "Hmm," he said.

Juliet noticed the look. "What?" she asked. She grinned a little, unable to stay serious for too long. "What did you want to know for? I thought you, like, totally hated wrestling."

Butler decided it was better not to answer that. "Mind if I just say what I'm thinking?" he said.

"I think it's about time."

Butler hesitated, like he was nervous. 'Like he was,' because Domovoi Butler didn't get nervous. He drew in a deep breath. "Don't take this the wrong way, Jules. But I'd rather you go back to Mexico. Or finish your training with Madam Ko. Anything that will keep you away from the manor, at least for a while."

Juliet raised her eyebrows, honestly puzzled. "But you said I was going back with you tomorrow."

"You are. I know the Fowls will all want you to be there when Artemis first gets home. But after that...I think you would be better off somewhere else."

Juliet stared for a moment, a flicker of hurt slipping into her face, then she forced a grin again and tried to laugh it off. "I thought you liked how annoying I am, Dom," she said, socking him in the arm. "Now you're trying to get rid of me."

Butler shook his head again, refusing to smile, though his face lost some of its austerity. "Listen for a minute. You remember what we told you about that pixie Opal Koboi, don't you?"

"She's the psychopath genius who turned herself into a human and tried to help humans discover the fairies, right?" Between Butler, Artemis, and Angeline, Juliet had been caught up on pretty much every one of Artemis's misadventures with the fairy people that had happened during the period she'd still been mind-wiped. "And then another one of her showed up when she tagged along with Artemis and Holly after they came back from the past."

"Yes," said Butler. "And that younger Opal is still on the loose out there somewhere. Or, if it's true what we've been hearing and her past self has been returned to the past already, Artemis isn't putting it past that little psychopath-pixie to have still laid some kind of trap. She made an attempt to free her present self a few months back before she was captured, and Artemis thinks there's a good chance the younger Opal's plan might have been more successful than the LEP think. With Artemis back on the surface, things will be more dangerous than ever at the manor."

"So?" said Juliet carelessly, eyebrows raised and eyes half-closed to show how unimpressed she was.

"_So_ I would feel better if you were somewhere far away if and when the Opal from our time makes her move."

Juliet scowled, lip jutting out in a pout. "You want me to run away and hide."

"I want you to be out of harm's way." Butler had to wince at how parental the words sounded, even to his own ears. Even though in some ways he had always been a little like a father to Juliet, his sister was an adult now, and he couldn't force her to obey him the way he used to. Yet, even if she found it frustrating, like he was treating her like a child again, he couldn't think of a more efficient way to put it, and even though so direct an approach might not be the most effective method of communication, he wanted to be honest.

"I care about Artemis too, you know," said Juliet, still frowning. "No way am I abandoning him when he and the rest of the Fowls could wind up in the middle of some calamity again. And I might be the one to replace you when you retire. Which, judging from the look of you, could be any day now."

Butler rode out Juliet's jabs at his age calmly as he always did and didn't respond.

Juliet continued, "Besides, Mrs. Fowl's been talking for ages about getting a bodyguard just for the twins, and you know I'm the one she's been thinking of. I'm strong _and _great to play with, so I could double as a babysitter." She grinned. "I can ask for double the pay. Not to mention, with Beckett around I'll finally have someone to teach my killer _standing shooting star press_ to."

The mental picture these words summoned was not a pleasant one, and Butler secretly hoped Angeline would think twice about hiring Juliet for that job, despite his sister's longstanding relationship with the Fowl family.

"It's not a matter of you abandoning Artemis," said Butler evenly. "He's my Principle, so it's my job to take care of him. But Artemis will be safer if my attention isn't divided between protecting him and another person I know who has a knack for getting into trouble."

"Who's asking you to protect me?" Juliet flipped some of the blond tresses of her ponytail over her shoulder in annoyance. "I'm every bit as tough as you. Maybe tougher, now that you're getting along in years, old timer. I'd help you protect the Fowls, and you could definitely use the extra help. I went through Madam Ko's training too, you know, so I've got the skills."

Butler did smile then. "I know that," he said, putting a hand over hers, an unusual display of affection for a member of the Butler family. "Just blame it on your brother getting a bit senile and too much of a worrier in his old age."

Juliet smiled back. "You're sweet, Dom." She paused. "I'm still not leaving the manor once I get there, though. I'm part of this whole crazy fairy-thing too; don't forget I was there with you and Artemis for the first round."

Butler shook his head. "There's my younger sister," he muttered. "Stubborn to a fault."

Juliet hit him lightly in the bicep. "_There's_ the pushover brother I know and love. Just you watch: when something dangerous and totally outlandish goes down, you'll be glad to have me there. "

Butler sighed yet again. Ah, the abuse one of the world's most dangerous men had to put up with. But he expected she was probably right.

* * *

Evening had descended on Haven City. Captain Holly Short leaned against a decorated bench just outside the restaurant Trouble had specified, waiting for her 'date' to arrive.

Trouble was running late now. He was supposed to have met her over twenty minutes ago, and so far Holly hadn't received so much as a text on her communicator. But maybe that was just as well: at the moment, Holly was in half a mind to strangle him when he did show up.

Holly's problem wasn't that he was late. Trouble must be insanely busy, especially after giving one of his officers the day off at his own expense. She wasn't going to get petty over a half-hour, unlike the elves on some of those bad daytime shows Holly had been flicking through earlier that day. No, Trouble's crime was not a lack of punctuality: it was about a hundred times worse.

Holly turned and shot a recriminating look at the restaurant behind her. One of the sprite waiters inside turned to give her a suspicious look through the glass—an extremely well-dressed waiter, as it happened. Neatly pressed slacks, a white shirt with a black bowtie, and hair slicked back, the whole nine yards.

Holly quickly turned away and, scowling, drew an arm protectively over the front of her hooded sweatshirt and hunched her shoulders in a vain attempt to make herself less conspicuous.

_I'm going to kill him. I am seriously going to kill him. This is not funny._

The name of the establishment Trouble had given to her earlier had been one she didn't recognize. _The Swordfish._ But that was hardly strange, considering the unbelievable number of restaurants that did business in Haven. She and Trouble liked to try out new things from time to time, just for a change of pace, and the two of them typically liked all the same kinds of places.

Or so she had assumed, much to her eternal regret now. Because underneath the sign reading 'The Swordfish' there was, in delicate fancy writing, _L'Espadon,_ written in the actual human language of French. French, as in, the term associated with the height of culture and refinement in the human world, with _croissants_ and _crème brûlée_ and fine art made by Picasso. French, the first word that came to mind whenever someone dropped the phrase _romance languages._ _That _French.

Holly's original slim hope that she would find there was some mistake, that the owners of the place were simply incredibly bad at advertising, had been quickly snuffed out when she peered inside and caught sight of the chandeliers hanging low over booths where pixies and elves in elegant evening gowns and freshly pressed tuxedos sat at ornately carved tables.

Trouble had not mentioned anything about dressing formally. If he had, Holly would have had the opportunity to tell him just exactly what she thought of the idea of meeting at a place like this. In fact, it was a miracle she hadn't already turned and slunk back off the way she had come the moment the obnoxiously refined and tasteful vintage restaurant front had met her eyes.

Of course, something like this was so out of the realm of any kind of stunt she would have ever expected out of Trouble Kelp of all fairies that she wouldn't have been much of a friend if she didn't at least suspect that this was some sort of set up, and he was as much a victim as she was. She knew without a doubt that if someone—say, a nosy centaur—were to have told Trouble Kelp that _L'Espadon_ was a little old-fashioned diner that served good coleslaw and chips, he probably would have believed it without a second thought. Trouble would never be so thorough as to check the place out himself beforehand.

Now Holly was standing outside the restaurant, waiting for him to arrive so she could either establish his guilt or confirm his innocence, and decide on his sentence if it proved to be the former. After she had somehow been drawn into spending almost the entire day reading Orion's infernal tome and thinking about it, this was not exactly turning out to be the welcome distraction she had hoped it would be.

Holly, drumming her fingers on the armrest of the bench, glanced down at the moonometer on her wrist for what felt like the millionth time. She had already shot off a couple of messages to Trouble, but she had had to make them low priority, as this was far from an emergency, so she couldn't be sure he would have noticed them. If he had noticed, he hadn't responded.

_Perhaps something serious has come up,_ she thought. Trouble had a tendency to zone in on one thing at a time, which meant he was always focused as a leader on those things which absolutely needed to get done, but also meant things of a lower priority had a tendency to get pushed clean from his mind.

Ten minutes, she decided. Then she'd head down to headquarters to find out what was up.

Holly felt better having a plan of action. So she let her eyes slide closed, and before she even had time to think about it consciously, she found her mind automatically roaming back to the sickly sweet, gag-worthy novel of Orion's. She had laid so many hours on her couch with the book held open on her stomach in front of her that she was sore all over. In some ways, the book had been exactly what she might have expected. But there were some things about those first few chapters...

"Excuse me, miss."

Holly opened her eyes to see a short gnome standing out just in front of the double set of glass doors. He was dressed in the white, silk shirt and charcoal-black slacks of the restaurant uniform and she recognized him as one of the fairies who had been standing behind the small counter at the front of the restaurant. He carried a digital pad in one hand and stylus in the other. His manner was courteous enough, except for the slight tightness about his mouth, which betrayed his annoyance.

"Yes?" she answered hesitantly, sure that this conversation was not going to lead anywhere she would like. She was, however, immensely grateful the employee had thus far not attempted to affect a French accent.

"May I help you, miss?" he asked. "Do you intend to come inside?"

"I'm meeting someone," Holly responded. "He's late, though. I don't know if he's going to make it."

"Well, I am sorry," said the gnome, with an admirable attempt at appearing sympathetic. "But we can't allow loitering; it turns away customers, you understand." His eyes flickered down to her clothes and he couldn't repress a disdainful sniff. "So we'll have to ask you to leave. We are all booked for the night anyway. Tell me, does your date have a reservation?"

His tone still managed to be gracious, but his dismay at being the one stuck driving off the chronically middle-class elf skulking around the entrance was in every line of his face.

Holly felt irritation slowly rising inside her now. But she could play the politeness game too if she had to and said, "I don't know. He didn't say."

The knowing look on the gnome's face and complete lack of surprise grated on her nerves still further. However, it suddenly occurred to Holly that if Trouble didn't know what kind of restaurant this was, he wouldn't have known to call ahead, so that might help clear up the question of whether this was a trick or not. She added quickly, "But his name's Trouble Kelp. Anyone listed by that name?"

The gnome raised his eyebrows and consulted his digipad. After a moment he said grudgingly, "Trouble Kelp...Ah, yes. Here it is." He looked up at Holly, his demeanor altering slightly. "That wouldn't be the famous Commander Trouble Kelp of the LEP by any chance, would it?" he said with interest. "I keep track of all the big names these days, everything going on in the political arena. Bit of a hobby of mine."

"That's him," said Holly, a bit tersely. Her shoulders sank. So he had made a reservation then.

However, Holly felt better as she further considered the possibility that Foaly had even gone so far as to call in for them. Foaly's pranks could be almost as elaborate as his gadgets.

The gnome was squinting at her, apparently having switched straight over from the snooty condescension of a fairy in a higher bracket of society speaking to a commoner to the open awe of a spectator gaping at a circus animal. "And you. Aren't you that female LEP officer? The one they kept running all the specials about three or four years ago, before she disappeared off to Hybras." He added as an afterthought something that Holly seriously hoped would have gotten him fired for its lack of professionalism if his manager had been listening. "I read a rumor on the nets that you and the commander had a thing. I guess it's true then."

"That's gossip," Holly said tightly. She was beginning to think there was nothing in the world more irksome than being well-known. Haven couldn't be this small of a city, could it? She must have the worst luck in the world to keep running into fairies who knew all the rumors about her floating around at the LEP. "We're just friends."

"Certainly," said the gnome, falling back into business mode. However, Holly could have sworn his eyes were still smirking.

Holly was searching for some kind of sly insult she could insert into the conversation as payment for that last comment and for the gnome's general attitude, but just then she heard a voice calling her name somewhere behind her.

Forgetting the annoying _L'Espadon_ employee for the moment, Holly turned to see Trouble waving an arm as he jogged up to them. She noticed right away that he was in his LEP commander's uniform, not a tux. The uniform, despite the professional look it gave him, was a little rugged from use, and would fit with the atmosphere of this restaurant only slightly better than Holly's clothes. It was just favorable enough of a sign to stop Holly immediately seizing him by the lapels and demanding to know if this was his idea of a joke.

He took several deep breaths, but was in such excellent physical condition that he wasn't winded for more than a few seconds. He sent Holly an apologetic grin. "Sorry I'm late."

Holly waved a hand. "Don't worry about it. I'm thinking we've been had anyway." Holly jerked her thumb at the sign. "Looks like Foaly got you this time, Trubs. What do you say we head down to that dingy old coffee shop by the aquarium?"

Trouble turned to look at the sign. "No, this is the right place," he said calmly.

Holly stared at him. She opened her mouth to reply, but found her voice seemed to have temporarily deserted her. Trouble turned to the gnome.

"We have a reservation," he said, his back impeccably straight and his tone formal, pulling off the air of someone dressed in a custom-tailored suit surprisingly well.

The gnome bowed his head politely. "I see, sir. In that case, allow me to escort you inside." Holly noticed that the civil tone and phrase were at odds with the sour look on his face; she and Trouble were obvsiously not the sort of customers the place was used to serving. Holly felt the desire to choke the life out of her friend coming back.

"I'm really sorry I'm so late, Holly," Trouble apologized again in a low voice as they followed the gnome through the first set of double doors and the gnome went on to open a second set for them. Trouble's jagged eyebrows were tense above his deep purple eyes. "Should have called, I know. But I didn't have the chance. There was a bit of an emergency and...well, I guess there's no excuse nearly leaving you hanging like that. Especially when this was my idea in the first place."

"Forget that," Holly hissed as they entered the front area where the welcoming desk was located, and several of the well-dressed diners sitting at their tables turned to give the two officers looks alternating between irritated and snidely appraising. "Just tell me what we're doing in a place like /_this/_."

Trouble suddenly grinned and winked. "I've got everything all figured. Don't worry about a thing."

The gnome brought them to stand near a sign by the entrance that read _please wait to be seated_ in a script so lacy as to be almost illegible, and left the two there alone for a minute.

"Really," she murmured back testily, unconvinced. "Somehow, that does not make me feel any better. Honestly, this is just the kind of place—" Holly broke off.

"Trust me," he said. However, his attention was diverted when a waiter, a gangly sprite this time, skipped up to attend them.

Holly breathed a small sigh of relief. She had been about to comment that this was just the kind stuffy place Artemis would like, but she had caught herself in time. She had made it a policy not to bring Artemis up in front of Trouble if she could avoid it; Trouble had such a dislike for the former public enemy number one that he always had either an oath or a derisive comment ready whenever the subject arose.

"Trouble Kelp," Trouble told the waiter. "I've got a room reserved."

"Very good, sir," chirped the sprite.

They followed the sprite through the main room, past the tables surrounded by still more well-dressed diners, some of whom Holly swore she overheard whispering about them as they passed.

Holly determinedly kept her eyes on the sprite in front of them, making her face stony as she did her best to shut out the less-than-complimentary comments, though she felt heat rising up her neck all the same.

The sprite took them back to a hallway that led away from the main room, and a series of polished oak doors stood at intervals along the walls on either side. The sprite stopped in front of a door at the end that had been left slightly ajar, then pushed it open and held it for them as they entered.

Inside was a relatively spacious dining area, a single table draped with a simple white silk cloth sitting at the center. Besides the tall potted plants which sat on either side near the walls, and the crystal chandelier which hung from the ceiling, the space was relatively free of decoration, giving the room an air of simple elegance rather than extravagant luxury. Holly could just make out the faint sound of classical music playing in the background.

"Here is your room, sir," said the sprite, a tad unnecessarily. "Miss," he added, glancing at Holly. He pulled out their chairs for them and then gently pushed the chairs back into place with practiced finesse as they sat down, before setting out the menus. "I will be with you again in a few minutes," he said. "Would you like anything to drink?"

_This is so surreal,_ Holly thought as she drew her chair in a little closer. It was so incredibly bizarre that she almost didn't have the strength to stay indignant.

"Water for me," she said absently as her eyes traveled over the room.

Trouble didn't even glance at the list of drinks on the menu. "The same," he said.

"Sim-champagne?"

Trouble looked to Holly, and Holly realized he meant for her to answer.

"I'm fine," she said, flustered. Then, trying to be more formal, added hurriedly, "I mean, no thank you." She had never been much of a drinker, and even if she had been, she had a feeling there was no way the taste of the champagne, no matter how high-class, could ever be worth the outrageous price tag she suspected would be attached to a single bottle.

The sprite gave a smile and a nod, then hurried away, closing the door behind him.

Holly lowered her gaze to give her friend an incredulous look, and he grinned broadly.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"Ehm," Holly began. "It's...different." Her eyes went over the place again, and this time her gaze lingered on the chandelier, taking in the way the lights played and sparkled on each crystal. "I guess it's _kind_ of nice, in its own way. But seriously. What horrible catastrophe in nature drove us into a place like this? I know this is costing you an arm and a leg. And for what—so we can walk through a restaurant where either you're wearing clothes that cost _more_ than an arm and a leg, or you get gaped at like you're on parade for shabby dressing."

Trouble's grin was almost conspiratorial now. "Privacy," he explained. "Doesn't matter how we're dressed if we're in here, right? I like the other places as much as you do, but I really wanted some place where we could talk without worrying about some rascal listening in this time. Sorry, Holly, but you attract attention wherever you go. That's why you made such a lousy PI: You've been on so many late-night specials everyone knows who you are."

Holly rolled her eyes. "You, too, _famous Commander Trouble Kelp."_ She added skeptically, "And this was the only place in the entire city where you could think to get privacy?"

"Not exactly." He shrugged. "But this was a classier option."

"Point taken," she admitted.

Maybe it was the atmosphere of the dining area, the quiet lighting, the aura of sophistication and cleanliness, but they both fell silent, and things felt oddly awkward to Holly. Privacy or no privacy, this just wasn't the same as being at an old table in one of the usual haunts favored by the officers at the LEP, where they could be talking and a familiar coworker would walk by and say hello—the Stirbox coffee shop over in the Jazz Quarter maybe, or the old pizza joint by Westside Stadium, where all the crunchball fanatics like to hang. Being in a place like this felt strange. Stifling.

Maybe if Trouble had been more at ease, Holly would have relaxed too, but she noticed that, despite his glib tone, he was sitting up straight, as stiff as a board, like he was in a meeting with the Council.

_This is stupid. Are we really this tense just because this is some fancy, high-society restaurant?_

"So—" Holly started to say at the same time Trouble said suddenly, somehow sounding not quite like himself, "Notice you've been growing your hair out. Looks good."

Holly automatically reached up to finger the back of her neck self-consciously. _Trouble,_ she thought with slight exasperation. _You know you've always been one of my best friends, and I appreciate the compliment. But right now you are seriously making things worse._

"Thanks," she said, making an effort to keep her tone as breezy as possible. "You've said that before. But I still don't know if I like it. Crew cuts feel like they're more _me_, you know?" She laughed. "It's easier to keep under a helmet. I would hate to be Corporal Frond; she's lucky she doesn't do much in the way of field work."

"Looks good either way, I think." He wasn't quite looking at her as he said it.

Holly stared at him for a minute. A moment later she carefully lifted her eyes to the chandelier, then let them move surreptitiously to study each corner of the room. She was searching for hidden cameras—because she was sure someone must be trying to pull some kind of severely twisted prank on her. Foaly, and maybe Trouble too, would probably watch the video later and laugh at the look she had on her face right now. Holly briefly considered just telling him to knock it off already, but decided against it. If this was a joke, that would probably just amuse them all the more.

"So," said Holly, hurriedly changing the subject. "You said there was some kind of emergency at the LEP? What was that about?"

Trouble looked a little tired suddenly, but he shook his head. "Not so much an _emergency_ as some bad news. The Council's meeting tomorrow morning to decide what to do about it, and there wasn't much I could do in the meantime. But never mind, I'd rather not think about that just now."

Holly blinked. Trouble Kelp, not wanting to talk about the action? "But—" she began.

"I'll tell you about that later." Trouble's voice was firm. "I called you here for another reason. To...talk to you. About something. It might seem insensitive now with what's going on with the LEP, but I've been sitting on this for awhile and I just can't put it off anymore."

For some reason that Holly could not quite identify, this unsettled her. Despite Trouble's serious expression, in a pitiful attempt to lighten the atmosphere to what it usually was between the two of them, she said jokingly, "You? Insensitive?" She remembered having a similar conversation with Trouble's brother Grub once and added, "Perish the thought."

Unlike Corporal Kelp, Trouble could see the irony and he smiled a bit. "Guess you have a point."

Holly, seeing the humor returned to his face, felt some of the slight tension in her frame ease. She went on more naturally, "But seriously, Trouble. Just give the bad news to me straight—I was completely out the loop for three years, so I'd rather not be the last one to know something when I'm sitting right here. I promise not to faint from shock."

Trouble didn't laugh. Instead, he only shook his head again. "No, not yet. Just humor me for a second. You'll know about it before you leave here today, and you'll probably wish you didn't."

Holly wanted to press the issue, but Trouble's tone was not one to be argued with. Whatever that other topic he wanted to discuss was, something in his sober expression told her she probably wasn't going to like it.

Trouble's gaze was distant and he was silent for a moment. "Yes...three years," he mused presently. "A lot can happen in three years."

"Don't I know it," Holly agreed, but her eyes were busy studying his face, trying to figure him out.

Trouble was still thinking and they sat in pensive silence again until the sprite-waiter entered with their drinks and made to take their order. Holly looked to Trouble to set the price standard, as he was paying, but he gestured for Holly to go first.

Still distracted, Holly pointed randomly at something on the menu and Trouble asked for the same, as he had before. The sprite soon left them again, closing the door behind him.

Holly sipped at her water. She felt like sighing. Earlier that day she had been silently congratulating herself on the kind of relationship she had with Trouble, how things were casual and easy, how their 'dates' weren't the nerve-wracking ordeals they might be. Now here she was, awkwardly sitting in some stuff-shirt restaurant and having no idea what to say. All she knew was that she wanted to keep the talk as far as possible from certain topics.

_Say something about the LEP._

"Ah," said Holly, trying to sound natural, while she was positive that her voice didn't sound natural at all, "I hear Foaly's close to being done with the prototype for his latest aboveground-suit. He seems excited about it, even for him. Apparently it's the most technologically advanced suit he's designed in his entire career and all that." She forced a laugh. "How big a chunk would you wager just one of those suits is going to cut from the budget?"

"What do you think about Foaly?" Trouble asked abruptly. He didn't even smile, and so Holly had a feeling he hadn't heard anything she'd said.

"Uh," said Holly again, hoping words like this weren't going to become a regular part of her vocabulary. But she didn't know how else to respond; somehow she was unable to picture herself and Trouble having a gossip session about their favorite carrot-munching, technical-genius centaur. "What?"

"I mean about Caballine," Trouble clarified. "Foaly of all people, getting married. Never saw it coming, did you?" He was grinning, but Holly thought the expression looked a little strained, as though something else was on his mind.

"Oh." Holly made the corners of her lips turn upward, though she didn't know if anyone would have called the result a smile or not. "I guess not. Before I got taken off to Hybras, Foaly _was_ talking about having gotten a girlfriend and all, but I wasn't paying close attention. You know, busy trying to prevent world disaster and all that." She tried to laugh again, but it came out sounding more like a croak.

"But you're right," she continued, with more conviction this time, "I never would have pictured him as the marrying type." She was able to really smile then, and her voice was warm as she added, "But it's really given him something, hasn't it? They're a good match for each other."

Trouble nodded his agreement. "That's what I think." He leaned forward then, while at the same time his gaze dropped to his drink and he looked down at it intently. "But I guess you're probably wondering why I would bring it up."

Holly shrugged, trying to be nonchalant. "Was there a reason?"

Trouble smiled, but his face was unusually tense. His eyes were still on the ice cubes in his water, which clinked together as he lifted the glass and restlessly set it back down again. "Guess I just thought it was interesting. You know, how a fairy who just doesn't think he's interested in that kind of thing can suddenly find himself..."

Holly looked at her friend oddly, and wasn't sure where this was all leading. However, what he said temporarily distracted her, and her eyes slid down to her own drink. For a moment she forgot about where they were and her discomfort as her thoughts flickered back to a different time and place. "I know," she murmured, almost to herself, gaze unfocused. "It's not that it happens suddenly, you just realize it suddenly."

A split second after the words had slipped from her mouth, Holly realized what she'd just said. Heat rushed to her face and she glanced up quickly to see if Trouble was giving her the strange look a comment like that deserved.

However, Trouble was still eying his water, and seemed not to have noticed anything out of the ordinary. "Can't argue with that," he said, shrugging. "Although I'm not too sure about Foaly. He might have fallen pretty fast."

They were quiet. Trouble seemed to be off in his own thoughts, very strange for him, and Holly was too busy mentally berating herself for her lapse to try to come up with another conversation starter.

At last Trouble broke the silence with a heavy sigh, and he ran a hand over his short hair. He frowned deeply, as though annoyed with himself. "Sorry," he said gruffly after a moment. "It's not like me to beat around the bush like this. I'll get right to the point."

She didn't know why exactly, when she didn't have any idea what he was going to say, but Holly suddenly had the inexplicable urge to distract him. Maybe it was something in his tone. It was so oddly solemn, and he was never solemn about anything that wasn't work-related. Holly didn't want to talk about anything solemn. She wanted to say, "Come on, Trubs. Don't be so serious. Can't we just try to relax and have a good time like we always do? Don't tell me something that's going to make you look like that."

But Holly knew how stubborn he was, so there wasn't anything she could say to turn him away; if she tried, she'd probably just make things worse.

Trouble finally lifted his gaze to look her right in the eye, but it seemed to cost him a great effort, and his pointed ears were an odd shade of pink. He leaned forward, setting his elbows on the table—very bad etiquette, especially in a setting like this, Artemis would have been delighted to point it out—and set his drink aside. Trouble frowned slightly again, then began, sounding just a bit as though he was reciting a pre-memorized speech.

"Holly," he said slowly. "I hope you know I've always had nothing but the highest respect for you."

This was not a promising beginning. Holly felt a sinking in her stomach, and she had to fight to keep her face expressionless. A statement like that was usually followed by a 'however.'

Trouble was looking at her with such intensity that Holly had the inclination to look away and fidget restlessly, but she forced herself to keep her eyes on him in return. She was tense. She felt like one of those human tennis players waiting for a serve, with absolutely no clue as to which way the ball was going to go.

In the same measured voice, he continued, "From the first time we met—you remember, when you were testing for promotion to captain—I thought to myself that you might just have the makings of a top-notch officer, and it sure didn't take me long to find out. If not for your skills, and the fact that you were the kind of fairy who'd do what an officer should do instead of worrying about your career or the politics, I probably wouldn't be here now." He shook his head slowly before his eyes returned to stare resolutely into hers. "After that, you only just continued to prove yourself, over and over. Always working hard, always taking your responsibilities seriously. You had raw talent and good instincts, but you didn't waste them just relying on those alone to carry you through, like we've both seen so many of our best rookies do. As an officer, you've always served the People first, yourself second. Holly, I'm not lying when I say that, in all the LEP, you're probably the fairy I admire most."

This was not what Holly had been expecting. She felt her face color with embarrassment, but she also couldn't stop the slow smile that spread across her mouth. She felt oddly warm all over. Trouble was one of the most decorated officers in all of the LEP, whose judgment and abilities she had always respected above any of the others, except maybe that of Commander Root when he'd still been alive. In all the time she had known Trouble, she had never heard him say anything like this to anyone before.

But Holly didn't let herself get too comfortable. She was still waiting for the 'however.'

A short pause followed, but just as Holly opened her mouth to say something to break the tension, Trouble coughed again into his fist, as though to mask his own embarrassment, and went on. "But in any case—I'm saying that as your boss. All that's just as much as old Beetroot would have told you if he'd gotten the chance. In all the time we've known each other, that's how I've thought of you: a fellow officer of the LEP, and one more worthy of respect than most of the others put together." Then, for a moment, his eyes trailed away from her. "The truth is, I never did think of you as a—as a— "

And suddenly, like being struck with a bolt of lightning, Holly understood. She understood all right, and she wished she didn't.

_I'm as daft as Corporal Frond,_ she thought incredulously.

"As a—" she started, her tone agitated, but like Trouble she was unable to finish. She stopped and tried to compose herself again, to push back the sudden deep sense of anxiety and dismay she felt rise inside her. Because she knew now that things were never going to go back to how they were before Hybras.

Trouble nodded slowly, his eyes migrating down to his cup again. "The way Foaly looks at Caballine, I guess you could say. Don't take this as an insult, but I never even thought about it. Not until..."

"Until..." Holly echoed dully, resigning herself.

"When you got back from Hybras, after I hadn't seen you in so long, it felt like things were different. Can't quite explain it, but—well, before, I was so used to seeing you that to me you were like just another one of the guys around the office. And, Frond only knows, I was so wrapped up in myself and my career. I wasn't even thinking about that sort of thing. But when you came back...it was like meeting you again for the first time. Opened my eyes, you could say. I'm sorry I pretty much ignored you for so long, Holly. Guess I was trying to convince myself that things hadn't changed. But I couldn't lie to myself forever."

Holly nodded, but said nothing.

Trouble seemed to notice Holly's new gloomy state then, and his eyes were suddenly earnest.

"But," he said quickly, "when I say that, don't think for a minute it means I'm looking down on you. Don't lump me in with those hoards of stinkworm-maggots at the Academy or in the LEP who thought you were only there because you were on the lookout for some idiot to play second fiddle to. To me, you're an outstanding officer first, a female second. And that's exactly what I like about you. What got my attention."

His brow was so tense, he might have looked almost angry. He gazed at her with that frankness and open honesty that had always defined Trouble Kelp for as long as she had known him as he finished quietly, "All that time, I didn't see it, Holly. How much we have in common. The strong person that you are. But it's so obvious to me now: you're the ideal, Holly, as far as I can tell. The ideal partner." He fell silent, waiting for Holly to say something. He searched her face, perhaps looking to see if he had said something to offend her.

Holly didn't know how to respond. She had never been in a situation like this. Should she shoot him down right away? Or should she thank him for the immense compliment he was paying her first? What she wanted more than anything was for their relationship to stay the same as it was. But she was afraid to speak: this was so sensitive. Almost anything she might say may strike him hard, and the damage would be irreparable if he decided things would be easier on him if he cut himself off from her entirely.

Perhaps it was the strain of the moment, but suddenly Holly felt like giggling. _At least I don't have some horrible secret to reveal that will make him treat me like slime and wish he could take it back, _she thought. Then again, what would he think of her if he knew how she'd behaved toward a human less than a year ago? He might not hold her character and dedication to the People in such high esteem then.

Holly decided she would play it very carefully at first, see if she could make him understand without actually saying the words, and give him the hard straight-forward answer only as a last resort.

Holly summoned an image of Artemis's impassive, unreadable expression from when he had been caught in the exact situation she found herself in now, and did her best to imitate it, not giving anything away.

"Ideal," Holly repeated cautiously. "That word makes me kind of nervous, Trouble."

Trouble winced and rubbed the yellow patch of sim-skin on his nose.

"Okay, maybe that's not the right word. I didn't mean _perfect_." He added as an afterthought, "Some fairies get stupid and blind by these things. Not me." He shot her a smirk across the table. "Just the opposite, actually. I know for a fact my brains would have to be completely scrambled to be putting you and the word _perfect_ in the same sentence."

"Was that an insult?" she demanded. "Are you seriously wrapping up your deep, heartfelt confession with a last-minute jab like that? That is so like you." But Holly was laughing, and she realized she felt immensely relieved. This was how she preferred things to be.

But then Trouble's sudden grin softened into a look that was much more gentle. "When I said 'ideal,' I meant you were the best. Everything I—or anyone—could ask for. Both the good and the bad. You don't want to be worshiped, and that's exactly what makes you so..."

Holly said nothing, and she felt her shoulders sink slightly.

His grin suddenly grew broad again. "I'm going to say something corny and completely embarrassing, so be prepared."

"More corny than what you've already said so far?" she teased, smiling a little, but she made her tone soft. She couldn't know if she was handling any of this right, but her instinct told her that Trouble would like her to act as normal as possible, just as much as she wanted to see it from him, that that was the best way to make this easier on her friend.

"Good point," he conceded, chuckling. "Holly, you don't want me or anybody else to worship you or treat you like some kind of a princess, and that's exactly what makes you so...desirable."

"Desirable?"

"Desirable," he confirmed.

"That's...flattering."

He snorted. "Not exactly. It's just the truth."

They looked at one another across the table for a long moment, and Holly knew the time had arrived for her to give her answer. Her eyes moved automatically toward the door on the other side of the room, wondering when their dinners would arrive. She wished that Trouble could have been more like other males, who couldn't bring themselves to say the words until the last possible moment, just as they were about to go home. Then she could stall long enough to make a break for it and get some time to herself to think about what she wanted to say. But, as always, Trouble Kelp was too impatient and gung-ho for that.

"Yes or no, Holly," Trouble said, grinning a little. "It's just one word. So the waiter coming back and interrupting us isn't going to save you. You know what I'm trying to ask. I tried to think this all out ahead of time to say everything I felt like I needed to, and even though you know planning ahead isn't my specialty, I think I've hit on just about everything. Now I want to know. I want to know if you'd be willing to give me a chance, Holly."

Holly looked at him steadily. She gazed at his strong features, into his intense purple eyes, and felt a strange stab of regret. If he had said this before Hybras, or even in that lonely time just directly after it, then maybe...

"Trouble," she said quietly. "Thank you. For everything you said. It means a lot. All that about respecting me as an officer and as a person, that's just how I feel about you, too—you were a hero before I'd even entered the Academy, so I suppose I kind of saw you as a rival, the fairy to beat. But that meant I looked up to you, too. You know, I don't know if I ever even would have made captain if you hadn't been there to encourage me at the end of my initiation. But..."

"But?" he said, smiling ruefully. Though he didn't look entirely surprised.

"But, Trouble, I'm...not looking for that right now. I like the way things are. Between us, I mean."

Trouble sighed, though still smiling. "I know you do, Holly. And I know how you feel. But if you take time to think about it, you might change your mind. We could have so much more than we have now."

Holly shook her head. "Trouble..."

"What, is there someone else?" he asked, half jokingly.

Holly's breath caught slightly, but she was saved from being forced to come up with a reply as Trouble went on, "You know, I kind of wondered if you might have secretly had a _little_ bit of a thing for Foaly. Just a little. You were good friends all those years, and when you got back from Hybras...I thought you seemed a little glum whenever Foaly's marriage was mentioned."

Holly laughed, partly from relief, partly from incredulity. "Foaly? Really? Well, you're right, I was kind of depressed about his having married while I was away. Couldn't believe I'd missed something that huge. And I felt kind of left out, I guess. But me, _like_ Foaly? In that way?"

Trouble grinned, and despite his cavalier tone from before as though he didn't care, he seemed to sit up straighter. Talking quickly and with considerably more animation, he said, "Guess that wasn't much of a theory. You know I'm not too good at reading people. Now that I think of it, are centaurs and elves even compatible? Sorry, guess only brainless thrill-seekers and psychos like Turnball Root go for wantonly crossing over species' lines, didn't mean to lump you in with _that_ kind. I mean, centaurs are probably almost as far away from the major eight fairy families as we are from the Mud Men." He laughed heartily.

"Further," said Holly, managing to force a weak smile. She desperately hoped she would be able to change the subject before long.

"So," Trouble mused when his amusement had died away, "you're not interested, huh?"

Holly's face was apologetic. "I'm sorry."

Trouble put up a hand. "Don't be. Actually, I've got something more I want to say. I know you've made your decision. But I want you to know that I'm making it an open offer. This isn't a take-it-or-leave-it, now-or-never kind of thing. I know I've sprung this on you all of a sudden, and right now you think you want things to stay like they are. But think it over. Think it over tomorrow, the next few weeks, months—take as much time you need. No pressure, but you're free to change your mind anytime. I'll still be waiting."

_No pressure. Just think about it._

Holly fought the headache she felt coming on as that memory surfaced unexpectedly, but she quelled it, making sure all her attention was directed on the friend in front of her.

"Trubs," she started. "That's...quite an offer. Really well thought out. But it's not fair. To you, I mean."

"Hey," said Trouble, spreading his arms wide. "Do I _look_ like I'm out there desperately hunting for a girlfriend? Never interested before. I pretty much quit dating at the end of high school when I got wrapped in my job at the LEP, and you're the first one I've thought about seriously since then. So waiting around's really no big sacrifice for me. But, if it makes you feel better, if I stumble across some great catch who steals my heart right off the bat, I'll tell you right away. Deal?"

Holly could only stare at him in amazement.

Trouble caught the look and frowned. "What?"

"Well," Holly began, looking thoroughly perplexed now. "I just wouldn't have expected you of all people to be so...tactful. So not forceful about pinning me down. _Patient_. Okay, who are you and what have you done with Trouble Kelp?"

Trouble grinned, wincing slightly. He must know he deserved that. "You know, part of being a good commander is identifying what battles are better won with caution and small steps at a time. I don't _always_ go in with guns blazing."

"No, only ninety-nine point nine percent of the time," Holly replied.

Trouble sighed, but was still grinning a bit. "Well, maybe. Ninety-nine point six." However, he glanced away then. The humor was still in his face, but now she could see a touch of gravity there, too. "I've changed a lot since you've been away, Holly," he said. "I may not have gotten taller, but I've grown."

They were quiet then, and Holly felt a wave of melancholic nostalgia for the old days. She missed the time when things had been more straight-forward and simple. The time when, whenever she had something she wanted, like being an officer of the LEP with clearance to pilot a shuttle, or being allowed to fly over the surface with a set of wings, she could just go after it.

It was almost funny, the way the Trouble she knew now was still exactly how she had been back then. To him, everything was as uncomplicated as moving from one spot on a field map to another, point A to point B. There might be bumps and bruises along the way, possible dangers, but those were nothing for someone tough enough to get past them. Even though Trouble had obviously been nervous and unsure of himself in bringing this up, the concept of pursuing a relationship with the good friend he'd known for years who was so well suited to him must seem only the natural course of action.

But the straight-forward and simple in Holly's way of thinking had been barred from her now. The obvious choice of pursuing what she wanted was not always available, and all she could do was hang in limbo, a realm of complete uncertainty, where she had no real goals for the future that motivated her, no straight line to point B, and the most she could do was drift aimlessly along with her severely muted sense of purpose and try not to think about it.

"I'll think it over, Trouble," she promised. "But I don't think anything will change."

Trouble nodded, satisfied. "That's fine. That's all I'm asking."

A strange mixture of feelings was twisting in Holly's mind. She was sincerely flattered by the attention of someone whom she thought so highly. She was relieved by Trouble's kindness and understanding, and of the fact that he wasn't going to let her negative answer get him down or get in the way of their friendship.

But she was also disappointed: disappointed that the friendship she had been counting on as an escape from her other worries was now going to be yet another source of anxiety, because she knew that her friend still held out hope, and she didn't know what would happen to their relationship when he finally did give up.

However, she found the most pressing thought going through her head right then was that she very much hoped that Foaly didn't find out about this. If the centaur had been able to create all that hype around them just from one measly as-friends date several months ago, she had a sneaking suspicion that, if any part of this conversation leaked out, then, in the minds of all the residents of Haven, she'd probably be secretly married with three children by the end of the week.

* * *

A/N: Three cheers for ostentatious wrestling moves! :D

Well then. Like I said at the beginning, very difficult chapter for me. Not just because it was so long (though there was that, too), but like I said at the beginning, I worried that it might make this story seem like it's going off in a strange direction. (There are several reasons I felt I needed/wanted these particular scenes to be in here, but it's hard to explain at this point in the story.)

Also, I would say the second part of this chapter is the first radically 'non-AF-esque' scene, if that makes sense, which worried me too. You know, going on about the awkwardness of dating and relationships. XD I think some of the hardest scenes to write are scenes like this, where you've never seen the characters in this kind of situation, so you don't have a reference to go by for what kind of things they would think and say.

But yeah, on a random note, I admit I have always wondered just what Trouble and Holly's relationship was actually like. In the AF Files, Holly lists Trouble as a best friend alongside Foaly, but in the actual books, you don't really see much interaction between them and almost none outside a work context, so it's hard to gauge how close they really are supposed to be. I guess in the AF books, there was never really a need or opportunity to develop Holly and Trouble's relationship very far in that way, so I was glad in working on this story it provided the chance to. I tried to base their interaction in a more social situation on the way they seemed to get along in the short story about Holly's captain initiation, which is probably the story where I liked Trouble the most (or at least thought he was the most interesting). Or at least, I based it on how their relationship might be likely to be based on their interaction in the captain initiation story, since in that story it seems like they'd only just met.

Anyway! Next chapter, we'll get back to Artemis for a bit and then finish Holly and Trouble's date. :j (No, it's not over, I'm afraid.)

Well, thanks so much to all of you who took the time to review last chapter, I'd love to hear from anyone's who's read this! :D (And as always, a massive, massive amount of credit goes to levina, for betaing this enormous chapter and helping to get it presentable. And for pulling double-duty and going through it twice! I know this one was a killer, thank you so much.)

Posted 2/23/13 (First post of the new year! Whoa, has it really been over four months...? I guess that's what happens when I insist on writing chapters 13,000 words long. X3 But on the bright side, I think that the extra time I took to work on this chapter made it turn out a lot better than if I'd posted it a few months ago when I thought I was close to being 'done' before. :j)


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